Special CBI Judge Kanwaljeet Arora discharged Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Y S Verma saying the sanction to prosecute him was "bad in the eyes of law" as it was given by an officer, junior to the one competent to grant it.
"On the basis of the facts pleaded in Verma's application and arguments advanced, it is admitted position that accused at the relevant point of time was working as senior intelligence officer with DRI, which is a Group B Post.
"Having been appointed to the post of Group B Cadre, by orders of DRI director general, a right has accrued in favour of the accused by virtue of Article 311(1) of the Constitution that he cannot be removed from his office by an officer subordinate to the rank of director general," the court said.
"Admittedly, additional director general who had passed the sanction order on December 29, 2006 was subordinate to director general, therefore, she could not have passed the sanction order. The said sanction therefore is bad in the eyes of law," the court said, discharging Verma.
The corruption case against Verma was lodged by the CBI on complaint of Delhi-based exporter A K Aggarwal, who had alleged that Verma had lodged a false excise duty evasion case against him and had raided his house in September 2005.
He said Verma subsequently had demanded a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from him to bail him out of the case.
On Aggarwal's complaint, the CBI laid a trap and allegedly caught Verma red-handed while accepting Rs 5 lakh as the first instalment of the bribe from Aggarwal at the South Delhi house of another co-accused Mahender Kumar. (More)