No reference of accused Bansal’s pre-arrest statement in cas

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
The then investigating officer (IO) in the Judge bribery case, DCP (North), Delhi, Madhur Verma today admitted during his cross-examination that a handwritten and signed statement of accused Sanjiv Bansal submitted by him (Bansal) to the police three days prior to the registration of the case in August 2008 was not referred to in the case diary (zimni report). The prosecution had claimed that Bansal had created a false alibi three days prior to the registration of the case when he was called by the police for questioning that the cash amounting to Rs 15 lakh was meant for a property dealer, Nirmal Singh, and was mistakenly delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur due to confusion in the names.
This statement of Sanjiv Bansal, handwritten and signed by him on August 13, 2008, has already been exhibited as evidence and is part of the CBI chargesheet. The FIR was registered on August 16, 2008.
This handwritten signed document handed by Bansal to the police a week prior to his arrest has not been mentioned in the case diary, said the defence counsel, who claimed that Bansal was forced to write and sign this document during his custody period after the arrest and thus it was not admissible.
Verma, who was in 2008 the UT ASP (Central), was cross-examined by advocate BS Riar, counsel for accused Sanjiv Bansal. Verma remained the investigating officer of the case from August 13, 2008, till August 26, 2008, before the case was transferred to the CBI.
“No reference of these documents was given by me in the case diary. The documents were the ‘defence of Sanjiv Bansal’ prior to the registration of the case to justify that Rs 15 lakh delivered by him at Justice Nirmaljit Kaur’s residence were actually meant for someone else,” Verma told the court today.
During his cross-examination, Verma was questioned whether the police had taken search warrants before conducting raids on the residence of accused Sanjiv Bansal, Nirmal Singh and Rajiv Gupta. Verma stated that the police followed the proper procedure and got the searches conducted and he did not recall if any search warrant was taken.
However, after examining the case files, Verma admitted that no search warrants were taken.
Case to be fast-tracked
The Judge bribery case will now be fast-tracked and heard every 15 days unlike once a month. The case has now been adjourned to October 26.
 
Top