SE turns approver; reinstated

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30: Superintending engineer (electrical) Jagdish Mitter was reinstated in the UT Administration today afternoon after he ...

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30: Superintending engineer (electrical) Jagdish Mitter was reinstated in the UT Administration today afternoon after he turned an approver in the engineering department kickbacks case.

His statement for becoming an approver was recorded in a closed court room by City Chief Judicial Magistrate Sant Parkash yesterday. As the statement was confidential, it was immediately sealed by the CJM.

Mitter is the second accused to have become an approver in the case. On May 2, superintending engineer A. K. Sachdeva had also turned an

approver. A Haryana cadre officer on deputation with the UT Administration, Sachdeva was earlier released on bail as the same was not opposed by the prosecution. The vigilance department officials had sought judicial remand for him, while police remand had been sought for the other accused facing the same allegations.

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Meanwhile, in an application earlier submitted in the CJM’s court, Mitter had stated that he was turning an approver on his free will and without any pressure. Expressing willingness to state the "true facts and circumstances" of the case, he had added that his conscious did allow him to conceal the facts.

He was earlier arrested by the Vigilance Department under the Prevention of Corruption Act, besides Section 406, 409, 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code on June 3 in the FIR registered against former chief engineer K K Jerath.

He was the ninth accused to be arrested in the case on the basis of diaries reportedly recovered during raids by the Income Tax authorities from the residences of the alleged middlemen in November last year.

According to the prosecution, approximately Rs 1,75,000 were entered against his name in the alleged middleman Sunil Kalia’s diary, while about Rs 85,800 were scrawled against his name in the diaries allegedly belonging to the other "middlemen", the Sharma brothers.