Bar & Bench News Network
In a major twist in the Cash-at-Door scam involving former judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court Nirmal Yadav (pictured), co-accused advocate Sandeep Bansal has filed a petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court asserting that he merely acted as a middle man to deliver cash worth Rs. 15 lakh to the official residence of Justice Nirmal Kaur.
According to TOI, Bansal has sought directions to quash the FIR filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter will come up for hearing by end of this week. Another co-accused, Delhi-based hotelier Ravinder Bhasin has already claimed that the cash was for former judge Nirmal Yadav to buy a land in Solan.
The petition filed by Bansal before the High Court claiming that the money was handed over to him by Ravinder Singh for Solan land deal and his role in the entire controversy was nothing more than that of a delivery man, might create more trouble for former judge Nirmal Yadav.
The scam came into the limelight in August 2008 when a bag containing money worth Rs. 15 lakh was delivered to the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur following which she reported the matter to the police. The money was allegedly delivered by a clerk of former Haryana Additional Advocate General Sanjeev Bansal, the prime accused in the case. It was discovered later that the money was meant for Justice Nirmal Yadav.
Nirmal Yadav had proceeded on leave after the case came into public domain and had stopped conducting judicial work in the High Court. The judge had denied all the allegations against her. She was later transferred from Punjab and Haryana High Court to the Uttarakhand High Court as she was named in the cash-at-door scandal.
On the day of her retirement as Uttarakhand High Court Judge, CBI had filed a chargesheet against Nirmal Yadav, in the special CBI court in Chandigarh for her alleged involvement in the cash-at-door scam and the case is now pending before Special CBI court. CBI had filed the chargesheet after receiving a nod from President Pratibha Patil sanctioning the prosecution against former Justice Yadav.
The CBI filed a 25-page chargesheet in the court of special CBI Judge Ritu Tagore against former Justice Yadav, Sanjeev Bansal, Rajiv Gupta, Ravinder Bhasin and a New Delhi-based property dealer, Nirmal Singh. The five have been charged with corruption, conspiracy, destroying evidence and creation of false evidence under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Earlier in December 2009, the CBI had submitted the closure report in the case when the Law Ministry gave Justice Yadav a clean chit on the advice of then Attorney General Milon Banerjee who said that the agency did not have evidence to prosecute Justice Yadav in the case. The Bar Association of the Punjab & Haryana High Court had thereafter passed a resolution, condemning then CJI K.G. Balakrishnan and Milon Banerjee for having given a clean chit to Justice Nirmal Yadav, in the cash-in-bag scam.
The closure of the case was challenged by the lawyers of the Punjab & Haryana High Court following which the CBI demanded revival of the case by inquiring about the irregular purchase of land in Solan, by Justice Yadav and her relatives. CBI claimed that the cash delivered mistakenly at the doorstep of Justice Kaur was actually meant for Justice Yadav for payments to be made towards the Solan land deal. The Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia had in September 2010 given a green signal to CBI to probe the alleged role of Nirmal Yadav in the cash at door scam and Solan land deal scam.
Former Justice Yadav is the first woman high court judge in the country to have been chargesheeted by the CBI for corruption and bribery.
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- 1. "Normally corruption starts from lower judiciary, but no correctionary attempt is made from the high courts. On account of this, some cases of high degree corruption start appearing in the high courts as well as in the SCl. The case of Justice Nirmal Yadava may be an example in this context. At least in U P the ‘judicial corruption’ starts from customary extraction of a currency note of Rs.10 or 20 from each and every litigant by the reader or his peon in the very front of the judicial officer, while giving a new date to the litigant. The height of corruption reaches when even the entire Case File Case Diary is made to disappear in order to pave the way for the accused persons to escape unscathed. Not only this, even after lodging fully substantiated complaints on such grave matters to D.J.or A.J. of High Court, etc., no action is taken as if this an acceptable tradition. Many of the judicial officers openly and shamelessly take bribe and give judgment in favor of the bribe-payers. Many charge-sheeted criminals who never appear in the lower court and remain absconding for years together, easily get Stay Orders from the high court U/s 482 of CrPC. Then for many-many years or even for decades the case files in the high court remain entombed. I have got hardest of the hard documentary proofs to substantiate each and every word stated above. Why CCTV cameras are not installed in each and every court, and rooms where clerks (baabus) make monetary dealings with the litigants ? There is an English proverb that says : HE WHO BUYETH MAGISTRACY, ALWAYS SELLS JUSTICE.". Dr. Gurdeep Singh, (Unknown City?)
- 2. "what a pity... jus. yadav was an excellent judge, she has been falsely implicated in the most arbitrary, unusual and blatant manner.. Bar of Uttrakhand High court Prays that she comes out of this..... Maam we are wit u . ". Vipul Sharma, R�darpur
- 3. "One should read judgement dated 20/02/2006 in case Mahant Chand Nath Yogi case to fully appreciate Justice Nirmal Yadav.". Ravinder , Chandigarh
- 4. "This is one of the most arbitrary cases where no evidence of the purpose of any bribe exchange is available and continues to exist in court files only because of the jealousy of some highly placed figures in judicial circles in UT of Chandigarh and justice demands that it be forthwith closed.". Yash, (Unknown City?)
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The Viewpoint: Indemnification Provisions - Is the fight on the indemnity clause worth the effort?
May 17, 2012 | Bar & Bench brings to you the twentieth article on 'The Viewpoint' series with its Knowledge Partner AZB & Partners. AZB Senior Associate Nandish Vyas and Associate Pranati Ishwar in this article seek to examine the context in which indemnification rights are relevant for acquisition transactions, and also seek to explore if there are areas where they are potentially not worth the comments (4)
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