Special CBI Judge Manoj Jain let off Executive Engineer Dal Chand Gupta here saying it could not find out whether the accused had demanded or accepted any bribe amount from the complainant in the case.
"I am neither able to find out any element of demand from accused nor any facet of acceptance of bribe by the accused. It was rather M K Mathur (assistant engineer) who had demanded the money. It was Mathur who accepted the money...
"Admittedly, all this is happening in the office of accused (Gupta) but there is nothing before me which may even slightly imply that there was any direct or indirect, tacit or implied understanding, consent, knowledge or affirmation of Gupta with regard to handing over money to Mathur or its acceptance by Mathur on behalf of accused. It seems that Gupta was virtually oblivious to such occurrence," the judge said.
Gupta had been put on trial on various charges under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
The CBI had arrested Gupta from his South Delhi office in June 2006 on the complaint of one Satish Kapoor, who was in the business of construction and civil engineering, on the allegation that the accused had demanded Rs 25,000 from him for making the payment of a bill worth Rs four lakh for a civil work executed by him.
Kapoor had also told the CBI that the total value of the contract was Rs 13.18 lakh and after completing the work in March 2005, he had received part payment of Rs 8.95 lakh.
Balance payment of Rs four lakh, however, was not released despite the fact that he had attended to the defects pointed out by the officials of CPWD, Kapoor had told the agency.
During the trial Gupta had pleaded innocence and claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case.
