Former deputy director of ED granted anticipatory bail by CBI court in bribery case

According to the CBI, a case has been registered against Gurnam Singh on January 29, the then Deputy Director Enforcement Directorate, Chandigarh, and who retired as Section Officer, CFSL, Chandigarh.




The former Deputy Director of Enforcement Directorate, who is accused of accepting Rs 2.50 lakh bribe in 2017, was granted anticipatory bail by the Special CBI Court of Chandigarh on Tuesday.

According to the CBI, a case has been registered against Gurnam Singh on January 29, the then Deputy Director Enforcement Directorate, Chandigarh, and who retired as Section Officer, CFSL, Chandigarh.

According to the complaint, Gurnam Singh had abused his official position as a public servant in criminal conspiracy with Vinod Kumar Gupta and another unidentified person, to obtain an illegal gratification of Rs 2.50 lakh other than the legal remuneration from Vinod Kumar Gupta in a pending enquiry. The case was registered under Section 7, 12, 13 (2) read with 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and under the Section 120-B of Indian Penal Code.

An FIR was registered against Disha Gupta under the Section 420 of Indian Penal Code at the Sector 34 PS on February 19, 2015, on the complaint of Gaurav Chawla, Director of Health Biotech Ltd, Chandigarh on allegations that Disha, who was a Senior Manager in Chawla’s company, had misappropriated Rs 1.10 crore of the company by transferring this amount to her personal bank account. The FIR was forwarded by the Chandigarh police to the office of Enforcement Directorate, Chandigarh, in 2015, following which an enquiry under the provisions of FEMA Act, 1999, was initiated by the ED and it was marked to Gurnam Singh, the then Deputy Director, ED, Chandigarh. The enquiry remained with Gurnam Singh upto January 18, 2017, after which he was repatriated by ED to CFSL, Chandigarh.

The accused Gurnam Singh being at ED, issued summons in November 2016 to Disha Gupta and her parents, Vinod Kumar Gupta and Suman Gupta of Ropar (Punjab), directing them to appear before him on November 8, 2016 at the ED office in Chandigarh. Vinod Kumar Gupta appeared before Gurnam Singh, who demanded bribe from him for helping him in settling the matter being enquired by him and thereafter obtained Rs 2.50 lakh from accused Vinod Kumar Gupta’s wife’s account into the account of his mother, Parkash kaur. The bribe amount of Rs 2.50 lakh was later transferred to the account of Sukhmanjeet Singh, Gurnam Singh’s son, whereas the allegations mentioned in the case were not disclosed to the family members of the accused at the time of conducting search at the residential premises of the accused person in February 2020. It was said that it is evident that the bribe money was transferred through NEFT and in order to unearth the true facts about the transaction of the bribe amount and to probe the allegations levelled in the FIR against the petitioner, Gurnam Singh’s sustained custodial interrogation will be required, thus, the anticipatory bail application may be dismissed.

The defense counsel advocate Terminder Singh, however, argued that the accused has been falsely implicated in the case and Gurnam Singh came to know about the case when the CBI official came at his house and at that time, the petitioner was not at home and they disclosed about the registration of the case to the family members of Singh.

After hearing to the arguments, the accused, Gurnam Singh, was granted an anticipatory bail by the Court of ADJ Dr Sushil Kumar Garg, on the condition that he will join the investigation as and when required and he will not leave the country without the permission of the Court. The Court also said that he should not directly or indirectly induce or influence the prosecution witnesses or tamper with the evidence.

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