http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 1 of 4  

CASE NO.: Appeal (crl.)  710 of 2007

PETITIONER: Soma Chakravarty

RESPONDENT: State Through CBI

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 10/05/2007

BENCH: Markandey Katju

JUDGMENT: J U D G M E N T

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 710 OF 2007 (Arising out of  Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No.552/2006)

Markandey Katju, J.

1.      Leave granted.   

2.      This appeal has been filed against the judgment and order of the Delhi  High Court dated 22.10.2005 in Criminal Revision Petition No. 10/2005.

3.      Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

4.      The Criminal Revision Petition was filed in the High Court  challenging the order of the Special Judge, Delhi in Case CC No. 63/2001  titled CBI vs. Priya Uppal & Ors., by which the appellant and two others  had been charged for offences under Section 420 read with Sections 120-B,  429, 468 and 471 of Indian Penal Code  as well  as under various provisions  of the Prevention of Corruption Act.  The appellant along with the other  accused in this case allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy and by  misusing their official position caused undue pecuniary advantage to  themselves to the tune of Rs.30,30,057/- and caused a corresponding loss to  the Indian Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) which is a wing of the  Central Government, from whose account money was released against bogus  receipts of advertisements which had actually never been carried by any  newspaper or other publication.  

5.      The prosecution case is that the publicity department of ITPO was  concerned with the release of advertisements in newspapers.  There were  two types of advertisements; (1) regular advertisement & (2) ad hoc  advertisements.  Regular advertisements were given to the national dailies  and other leading newspapers and magazines, whereas ad hoc  advertisements were those which were issued on ad hoc basis from time to  time with the specific approval of the Chief Managing Director or Executive  Director only.  The procedure for release of advertisements on behalf of  ITPO was as follows:   6.      Requests were received from Indian and foreign  magazines/newspapers/publications for the advertisements which were  processed by the publicity officer of the rank of Deputy Manager level and  were put before the CMD/ED through the Senior Manager/Deputy General  Manager for his approval.  On receipt of the approval from the  CMD/Executive Director by the publicity Division the concerned manager  sent letters/release orders to the party for publication of the material.  After  the advertisements were published the concerned officer of the publicity

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 2 of 4  

Division of ITPO had to process and pass the bills for making payment to  the advertising agency.  Copy of the letter sent and copy of the  newspapers/magazine were also forwarded or attached to the bill submitted  by the agency.

7.      The prosecution alleged that at the relevant time Shri Bal Krishan,  Deputy Manager was in charge of the work relating to ad hoc  advertisements.  He was the authorized officer to process the bills for such  advertisements.  It is alleged that Shri Ajay Uppal, proof Reader/Senior  Assistant of ITPO floated 6 bogus firms and submitted 76 bogus bills worth  Rs.30,30,057/- for payment by signing under fictitious names like, Sanjay  Gupta, Neeraj, Atul, etc.  With these bills he enclosed photocopies of fake  advertisements.  Out of 76 bogus bills, 14 were dishonestly processed and  verified by the accused Soma Chakravarty and P. K. Jindal, in connivance  with the co-accused to cheat the ITPO and give wrongful gain to themselves  and to the other accused in this case.  It is stated that the appellant also had  the knowledge that Bal Krishan had been authorized to verify the bills  pertaining to ad hoc advertisements.   All the bogus vouchers had been filled  in by the co-accused Gyase Ram who was neither posted in the publicity  division nor was authorized to do so.  It is further alleged that the appellant  knew that those bogus bills had not been entered in the bills register of the  publicity Division of ITPO and no file had been opened/created in respect of  these firms claiming to have published advertisements.  The file numbers  written on the fictitious bills were also fake.  None of these bills bore initial  or signatures of Shri Balkrishan, who was incharge of the ad hoc  advertisements of ITPO at the relevant time.  As regards the other accused,  P.K. Jindal, the allegation is that he as Senior Manager of Accounts passed  bills worth Rs.1,75,000/- related  to these transactions.  On these facts, the  CBI concluded that there was sufficient evidence of conspiracy to cheat  along with the other evidence of forgery, cheating and corruption.   Accordingly a charge sheet was filed.  The trial court after examining the  allegations and evidence collected by the investigation framed the impugned  charges against the appellant Ms. Soma Chakravarty & Mr. P.K. Jindal.   Against the framing of charges a criminal revision was filed in the High  Court which dismissed the same by the impugned judgment.

8.      On behalf of the appellant it was contended before the High Court that  there was no material before the Special Judge entitling him to frame  charges against the accused.  It was submitted on behalf of the accused  Soma Chakravarty that she did nothing more than processing some of those  14 bills and sending them to the accounts division of ITPO from where the  payments had been collected by cheques.  It was submitted that the appellant  was working as Deputy Manager in the publicity division of I.T.P.O. and  had signed 13 bills and sanction forms after they had been processed by  Gyase Ram and all the 13 bills contained the signatures of Gyase Ram when  they were put  before her for her signature.  She contended that she had  signed those bills in the normal course of her duties and the bills were  passed by the accounts section.  She attributed lack of vigilance to the  accounts section which was required to verify those bills with reference to  the sanction for the advertisement.  She claimed that Bal krishan, the officer  authorized to deal with the ad hoc advertisement, was himself a beneficiary  of part of the alleged money cheated out of ITPO.  It was claimed on behalf  of the appellant Soma Chakravarty that the investigation had failed to reveal  any mens rea on her part.  She contended that she was implicated only  because of her failure to take sufficient care while initialing the bills in  question.  She contended that it was not possible for her to detect at the time  of initialing the bills that any fraud was being played on her by co-accused  Gyase Ram and others.  Accordingly she sought to be discharged from the  case.  Similarly, the other co-accused P.K. Jindal also denied any  involvement in the offence and alleged that there was hardly any allegation  against him in the charge sheet.  

9.      The High Court dismissed the Criminal Revision Petition filed by the  appellant, and hence this appeal by special leave.

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 3 of 4  

10.     Learned counsel for the appellant relied on the decisions of this Court  in Union of India and another  vs. Major J. S. Khanna etc.  1972 (3) SCC  873,  State of Maharashtra and others vs. Som Nath Thapa and others  1996 (4) SCC 659 and  L Chandraiah vs. State of A.P. and another  2003  (12) SCC 670  and contended that before framing the charges the court must  have some material on the basis of which it can come to the conclusion that  there is a prima facie case against the accused.  In our opinion there was  such material before the Court while framing the charge.

11.     It may be mentioned that the settled legal position, as mentioned in  the above decisions, is that if on the basis of material on record the Court  could form an opinion that the accused might have committed offence it can  frame the charge, though for conviction the conclusion is required to be  proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused has committed the offence.   At the time of framing of the charges the probative value of the material on  record cannot be gone into, and the material brought on record by the  prosecution has to be accepted as true at that stage.  Before framing a charge  the court must apply its judicial mind on the material placed on record and  must be satisfied that the commitment of offence by the accused was  possible.  Whether, in fact, the accused committed the offence, can only be  decided in the trial.   

12.     Learned counsel for the appellant contended that in view of the  aforesaid decisions no charge could be framed against the appellant as there  was no material to show that she was prima facie guilty or had any mens rea.   We cannot agree.

13.     The facts of the present case disclose that advertisements of six bogus  firms had been published and 76 bogus bills worth Rs.30,30,057/- were  submitted for payment by signing under the fictitious names like, Sanjay  Gupta, Neeraj, Atul, etc.  Out of these 76 bogus bills 14 were said to be  dishonestly processed and verified and signed by the appellant Soma  Chakravarty and co-accused P. K. Jindal.  All the bogus bills were filled by  co-accused Gyase Ram who was neither posted in the publicity division nor  was authorized to do so.  These bogus bills had not been entered in the bills  register of the ITPO and no file had been opened or created in respect of  these firms claiming to have published the advertisements.  The file numbers  written on the fictitious bills were also fake.  None of these bills bore the  initial or signatures of Shri Bal Krishan who was incharge of the ITPO at the  relevant time.   

14.     It was contended by the learned counsel for the appellant that the  appellant had signed the aforesaid 13 bills in the normal course of her duty  and it was the Accounts section which was negligent in not verifying these  bills.   

15.     In our opinion once a person signs on a document he or she is  expected to make some enquiry before signing it.  In fact, accused Soma  Chakravarty was never assigned any duty in respect of processing or signing  the bills for ad hoc advertisements, and she was assigned duty only of  regular advertisements.  Moreover, these bills were not sanctioned/approved  by the competent authority i.e. the Chairman/Executive Director.    16.     No doubt Soma Chakravarty contended that she signed these fake bills  by negligence but without any mala fide intention, but this is a matter which,  in our opinion, is to be seen at the time of the trial.  There are serious  allegations of misappropriation of a huge amount of money belonging to the  government, and it cannot be said at this stage that there is no material at all  for framing the charge against her.  Hence, we agree with the view taken by  the High Court in this connection.

17.     In view of the above, we find no infirmity in the impugned judgment  and this appeal is consequently dismissed.  However, we make it clear that  any observation made by us in this judgment or in the impugned judgment of  the High Court will not influence the trial court, which shall decide the case

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 4 of 4  

on its merits, as expeditiously as possible.