The main legal point established in the judgment is that the investigating agency's conclusion, arrived at after deep investigation, should be given due weight, and the court should not interfere if the conclusion is reasonable.

ORDER :

Jagdish Prasad Gupta, J.

1. The aforesaid four cases have been filed against the impugned order dated 18/01/2018 passed by the Special Judge (Lokayukt) (Prevention of Corruption Act) Jabalpur. Hence this common order shall govern the disposal of the aforesaid cases.

2. By the impugned order dated 18/01/2018, learned Special Judge, Jabalpur has rejected the prayer of Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta Organization, Jabalpur with regard to acceptance of the closure report filed after investigation of Crime No. 134/2011 under section 13(1)(d), 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and under sections 420, 109, 120B of IPC directing the Lokayukta police to place all the original documents/records and the material collected during the investigation before the Sanctioning authority for obtaining sanction for prosecution against the concerned governments employees/accused persons.

3. That the respondents of Cr.R. No. 2111/2018 namely; Shivendra Singh, G.N. Singh, Tarun Kumar Anand, D.S. Sharma, Sanjay Khare, Shyam Mandal, V.K. Jha, S.C. Jain, C.L. Rakhya, Sanskar Pandey were posted at Jabalpur Development Authority, Jabalpur and were discharging their duties in their respective capacities and respondent S.K. Mahawar was posted at Town and Country Planning, District Jabalpur and was discharging his duty as Joint Director and S.S. Apouriya, A.K. Verma, and Bhoopendra Singh were posted as Registrar/Sub Registrar in District Jabalpur Registration Department and Ajay Kumar Sharma, Ajay Kumar Pandey, Ashok Kumar Saxena and L.N. Upadhyay were posted in MPMKVVCL and respondent no. 19 Ajeet Samdariya and respondent no. 20 Kishore Samdariya were Directors of Samdariya Builders Private Limited.

4. On the basis of the documents seized in the raid in the premises of respondent no. 2/G.N. Singh on preliminary enquiry it was revealed that the aforesaid public servants by misusing their power provided economic benefit to the private party M/s. Samdariya Builders for granting lease of land belonging to the Jabalpur Development Authority (in short JDA) then the Crime No. 134/2011 was registered for the offence under sections 13(1)(d), 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections 420, 109, 120B of the IPC.

5. The facts of the transaction which had allegedly taken place illegally by misusing the power by the aforesaid Government servants with a view to favour M/s. Samdariya Builders are that the J.D.A. issued an advertisement on 16/07/2004 in the newspaper inviting tender from the qualified contractors under the promoter scheme for the area 41,149 sq. ft. situated in Civic Centre, Jabalpur and reserve price was mentioned as Rs. 1500 per sq. ft. M/s. Samdariya Builder submitted its tender quoting Rs. 1799 per sq. ft., which was found to be highest bid, therefore, the same was accepted and the agreement was executed on 01/05/2006 and under the agreement the promoter having paid the entire cost of the land was given absolute right to choose the allottee of his choice, therefore, the promoter had absolute right to determine who will get the lease and JDA had to execute the lease deed in favour of the person whom the promoter chose and as per terms of the agreement, at the instance of M/s. Samdariya Builder lease deed was executed in favour of M/s. SBPL (Samdariya Builder Private Limited) treating it to be different and distinct entity. Accordingly, private builder M/s. SBPL is an allottee of J.D.A.

6. At initial stage of investigation, following illegalities or irregularities were emerged about aforesaid transaction for deep investigation:-

(i) The land reserved for commercial complex was allotted illegally as at the time of invitation of the tender no minimum price was fixed and no efforts were made to get highest price.

(ii) The lease rent was fixed @ 2% which is less than 6.5%, which requires to be fixed for the land belonging to Nazul land as per the relevant Rules;

(iii) Contrary to the terms of the agreement, the builder was provided e