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Paddy embezzlement case: High court stays conviction of former MLA Mangat Rai Bansal
Mangat Rai Bansal, who was convicted and awarded 7 years imprisonment on charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy in October 2013, can now contest the Punjab assembly polls in 2022
Chandigarh The high court has stayed the conviction of former MLA Mangat Rai Bansal after finding that former special judge, Central Bureau Investigation (CBI), Hemant Gopal, was indicted for bribery in the case involving Bansal.
Mangat Rai Bansal, who was convicted and awarded 7 years imprisonment on charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy in October 2013, can now contest the Punjab assembly polls in 2022.
“Though no final order has been passed by the hon’ble High Court qua Hemant Gopal, additional district and sessions judge, who is continuing under suspension for the last about 4 years yet prima facie, his indictment as per the enquiry report is apparent on record, therefore, this application is allowed, the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence shall remain stayed during the pendency of the appeal and will have no adverse effect on the civil rights of the petitioner,” justice Arvind Sangwan said in the judgment released on Monday.
The bribery case against the judge pertained to allegations by one of the accused in a paddy embezzlement case that Singla, a law officer with the Punjab government, ‘struck a deal’ on behalf of Gopal. The accused, Mangat Rai Bansal, had circulated a compact disc showing Singla collecting ₹40 lakh as bribe from another accused in the case, Parminder Singh, allegedly on the behalf of the judge. The date of this ‘collection’ was stated to be April 17, 2013.
The CBI court presided over by Gopal convicted 22 accused including Bansal and three FCI officials. But two accused Bachni Devi and Parminder Singh, who allegedly paid the bribe, were acquitted. The conviction order was passed in October 2013 in the 1999 case of embezzlement of ₹1.8 crore for which CBI had registered an FIR in 1999. The trial court judgment was subsequently challenged in the high court and is admitted for hearing.
In August this year, Mangat Rai Bansal had filed a fresh plea seeking stay on conviction in view of the fact that the presiding officer who convicted him has been indicted in the departmental proceedings. He had argued that in 2017, he was denied ticket in view of conviction and now as assembly elections are slated for February 2022, conviction be stayed, so that he can contest assembly polls.
