Court quashed the chargesheets against retired officers due to lack of substantial evidence and prior exoneration of similar cases.

ORDER

By Akhil Kumar Srivastava, JM;

The applicants in these Original Applications are challenging the chargesheet dated 24.02.2021 issued under Rule 7(1)(B) of All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1966. Since the issue involved in both these Original Applications is identical in nature, we propose to decide both the cases by way of a common order. For the purpose of this order, facts and the documents referred in OA 200/351/2024 have been taken as a leading case.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the applicant is a retired IPS officer. During his tenure as Director General, EOW, M.P. Bhopal from 04.10.2019 to 27.03.2020, the applicant was entrusted to investigate into the multi-crore online tender scam, which relates to large scale and gross irregularities in the manner of allotment of Government contracts and involvement of various politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. The irregularities relate to the e- tendering process of various State Government projects which was compromised and manipulated to benefit select private players from State Departments. The first step in exposing the scam was initiated by the MP State Electronics Development Corporation (MP- SEDC) which conducted an internal enquiry into the matter wherein it was found that the bid process of contracts of State Government were allegedly manipulated in order to benefit various companies based in Mumbai, Hyderabad etc., with the help of insiders, who provided sneak previews to such companies into the bid prices in an unauthorized manner so that those companies to make lower bids to get the tenders awarded to them. The various departments/corporation whose projects were thus manipulated and rigged in the above manner ranged from Public Works Department, Water Resources Department, MP Road Development Corporation, MP State Industrial Development Corporation etc.

2.1 The MP-SEDC had issued show cause notices to service providers viz; Tata Consultancy Services and Antares Systems on 06.06.2018 for non compliance with the terms and conditions of the Request for Proposal (RFP) of the contract agreements. The MP-SEDC later alerted other departments to cancel their tenders in view of the alleged manipulations and rigging that was taking place.

2.2 Subsequently, on the orders of the Chief Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh, some tenders were handed over to the EOW of the State Police for an investigation under the Information Technology Act , 2000 on the ground that tampering of e-ports is tantamount to economic and cyber fraud. Consequently, a preliminary enquiry was first registered by EOW and after investigations and FIR was registered in April 2019 against some suspected politicians, bureaucrats and companies on charges that pertained to fraud and violation of the IT Act, 2000 and other transgressions, leading to invocation of the Prevention of Corruption Act , 1988. The actions of EOW were also based on a report by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur and functions under the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT.

2.3 In the midst of the investigation, the applicant was transferred from EOW M.P. Bhopal to Sagar as Director JNPA and the applicant had duly joined his new assignment.

2.4 On 07.04.2019, certain search operations were conducted at the premises of a private individual named Shri Prateek Joshi by the Income Tax Department under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act , 1961. The applicant has never received any notice under Section 153C of the Income Tax Act 1961. Based upon the aforesaid search operation, the Income Tax De