Central Bureau Of Inves.Acu I New Delhi vs Party(s) on 07 Oct 2025

Judgment

1. By means of the instant application filed under Section 482 Cr.P.C., the applicants - (1) Anil Vijay (the then Assistant Executive Engineer (Civil) North Zone, NPCC Ltd., Faridabad); and (2) R.C. Sharma (the then Assistant Accounts Officer, North Zone, NPCC Ltd., Faridabad), have prayed for quashing of the charge-sheet no. 05 dated 23.12.2009 along with entire criminal proceedings of Court Case No. 3/2014, arising out of Crime No. RC AC-1 2008A0003, under Sections 120-B read with Section 420 IPC and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, P.S. CBI/ACU-I, New Delhi and they have also challenged validity of an order dated 05.04.2025 passed by the Special Judge, Anti-Corruption/CBI Court No. 4, Lucknow rejecting the discharge application of the applicants.

2. The aforesaid case was instituted on the basis of an FIR lodged on

30.04.2008 in Police Station CBI/ACU(I), New Delhi against - (1) unknown officials of NPCC Ltd. (National Projects Construction Company Ltd.) Delhi & Faridabad; (2) M/s. Unnao Construction Company, 29, Pitamber Nagar, Unnao, U.P. (which will hereinafter be referred to as ‘ UCC’ ); (3) M/s. Uma Shankar Sharma, Old 2 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 Nirmal School, Civil Lines, Unnao, U.P.; and (4) others unknown, stating that the CBI had received an information about corruption in the construction of Meza-Zirgo-Link-Channel under Ban Sagar Canal Project in Unnao Region, U.P.

3. NPCC Ltd. is a public sector company which is primarily responsible to carry out construction of civil works and canal systems etc., awarded tender departments/organizations of Central/State Govts. In the year 2005, the NPCC Ltd. had got three different works from the Govt. of Uttar Pradesh for construction of Meza-Zirgo-Link-Channel at the costs of Rs. 31,81,52,777/-, Rs. 4,12,87,992.44p. and Rs. 3,62,72,370/- respectively. Certain officials of NPCC Ltd., entered into a criminal conspiracy with two private construction companies namely, UCC

and M/s Uma Shanker Sharma, Unnao, a proprietorship firm in pursuance whereof, they abused their official positions and awarded contracts to them at exorbitant rates. One of these projects for RD 36 km to 47.8 km, 64.6 km to 66.1 km and 66.8 km to 71.15 km was awarded to M/s UCC, Unnao for Rs. 28,20,05,378.50 and two smaller works for RD 30 km to 35 km for Rs. 3,83,78,597.80 and for RD 13 km to 19.5 km for Rs. 3,36,76,105.71 were awarded to M/s Uma Shanker Sharma, Unnao. M/s. UCC further sublet the work awarded to it to another private construction company, namely M/s. Sri Sai Earthworks Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi for Rs. 14,05,28,334.60 i.e. almost at half the amount of the value at which the contract was awarded by NPCC Ltd. to M/s. UCC.

4. The FIR also states that in response to the interest expressed by NPCC Ltd. in various works under Ban Sagar Canal Project, the Chief Engineer, Ban Sagar Project, Department of Irrigation, U.P. Government sent a letter dated 16.07.2005 stating that canal excavation work under the project was to be done and asking NPCC Ltd. to intimate whether it was interested in the work. The communication did not contain any particulars of the work viz. quantity of work, its estimated cost and terms and conditions of the work etc.

5. On 27.07.2005 NPCC Ltd. issued a Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT) to 3 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 10 agencies inviting their offers for execution of work, along with Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) of Rs. 10 lakhs to be submitted by

08.08.2005 for entering into a pre-tender tie-up. Although the Irrigation Department had not intimated the estimated cost of work to NPCC Ltd., in the notice inviting tender by NPCC the estimated cost of work was mentioned as Rs. 15 crore. On 06.08.2008, the Irrigation Department wrote to NPCC Ltd. that if they were interested in the proposal, they might send their offers in 3 packages. This letter also did not specify the size of packages. Thereafter, the NPCC issued an amendment in the original NIT dated 27.07.2005 stating that offers in three packages of Rs. 20 Crores, Rs. 10 Crores and Rs. 10 Crores could be submitted by 15.08.2005 and the condition related to EMD was also changed so as to provide that it would be obtained from the lowest bidder only. On 09.08.2005, another amendment was issued extending the date of receipt of offers from 15.08.2005 to 16.08.2005 without approval of the competent authority.

6. In response to the aforesaid NIT, only 3 firms, namely M/s UCC, M/s Uma Shanker Sharma and M/s G.S. Tiwari, all of Unnao, submitted their bids. It is alleged that the original NIT dated

25.07.2005 was issued to 10 agencies which included M/s UCC, Unnao but did not include M/s Uma Shankar Sharma, Unnao and M/s. G.S. Tiwari, Unnao. The amendments to NIT were sent to M/s Uma Shankar Sharma, Unnao and M/s. G.S. Tiwari, Unnao. This was allegedly done in furtherance of a conspiracy between the officials of NPCC Ltd., M/s UCC and M/s Uma Shanker Sharma to give a semblance of false competition. There was a striking closeness in the rates offered by the aforesaid tenderers.

7. The tenders submitted by the aforesaid three agencies were opened on 16.08.2005 and on 19.08.2005, the tender committee put up a note recommending award of major work to M/s UCC and the smaller works to M/s Uma Shanker Sharma with 7% margin of NPCC Ltd., without mentioning about the credentials of the aforesaid two agencies.

8. The NPCC Ltd. submitted an offer to the Chief Engineer, Banasagar 4 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 Project, U.P. by adding a margin of 7% over the quoted rates of the above mentioned two agencies. The rates were accepted by the U.P. Irrigation Department vide letter dated 29.08.2005, through which it was also conveyed for the first time that the total cost of the three works/packages will be Rs. 31.815 Crores, Rs. 3.627 Crores and Rs.

4.128 Crores.

9. Upon receiving confirmation from the U.P. Irrigation Department, the selected bids were submitted to CMD, NPCC for ex-post facto approval. While approving the proposal on 30.08.2005, CMD, NPCC Ltd., enquired whether the party’ s credentials are such as would make it capable of dealing with an increase in the size of package. In case the situation is otherwise, appropriate action should be taken. Although M/s UCC was registered for works up to Rs. 5 Crores only, the Mirzapur unit of NPCC Ltd. forwarded a letter dated 15.08.2005 sent by M/s UCC for enhancing its limit from Rs. 5 Crores to 50 Crores to its Corporate Office at Faridabad through fax on 30.08.2005 along with a recommendation dated 20.08.2005 made by the Unit Officer, Mirzapur. The proposal for award of work to M/s UCC got cleared from CMD, NPCC Ltd. and for this reason request and recommendation for enhancement of limit was made, without mentioning that M/s UCC was a new firm, registered only on 19.04.2005 with NPCC Ltd.

10. Thereafter, three Memoranda of Understanding were signed between the NPCC Ltd. and the U.P. Irrigation Department, U.P. on

31.08.2005 inter alia stating that NPCC Ltd. would commence and complete the respective works within the period specified. It did not contain any provision for sub-letting the contract to any other firm. However, NPCC Ltd. sublet the above three works; one entirely to M/s UCC, Unnao for Rs. 28,30,05,378.50 and two smaller ones entirely to M/s Uma Shanker Sharma for Rs. 3,83,78,597.80 and Rs. 3,36,76,105.71. M/s UCC did not have any infrastructure and experience to execute the works and it further sublet the work to M/s Sri Sai Earthworks Pvt. Ltd. for Rs. 14,05,28,334.60 vide letter dated 11.09.2005 i.e. at less than half of the rates on which contract had been awarded by NPCC Ltd. to M/s UCC. Therefore, by submitting inflated estimates of project works to Govt. of U.P., by 5 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 getting the contract at inflated rates, by subletting it to further to private firms, one of which further sublet it to another firm at a much lower rate, the accused persons abused their position and obtained pecuniary advantage for themselves and others causing corresponding wrongful loss to the public exchequer.

11. After investigation, the C.B.I. submitted the impugned charge-sheet No. 5 dated 23.12.2009 against 9 persons, including the applicants, stating that M/s UCC, Unnao was a partnership firm of co-accused persons Praveen Pratap Singh and Akhilesh Bahadur Singh. They had entered into a criminal conspiracy with certain officials of NPCC Ltd. to obtain the abovementioned works. The Irrigation Department could not have awarded these works to M/s UCC directly through the process of open tenders and, therefore, a conspiracy was hatched for award of work by Irrigation Department to NPCC Ltd. through Memorandum of Understanding and in turn, NPCC Ltd. would pass it on to M/s UCC through pre tender tie-up arrangement by way of limited tender process. Pre-tender tie-up is an arrangement through which NPCC Ltd. invites limited tenders from its registered agencies and executes MOU with the lowest bidder and then submits its own rates to the client after loading its percentage margin over the rates of the tied-up agency and on getting the work from the client, further passes it on to the tied-up agency.

12. During the year 2005, the applicant no. 2-R.C. Sharma was posted as Assistant Accounts Officer in North Zone, NPCC Ltd. and the applicant no. 1-Anil Vijay was posted as Assistant Executive Engineer (Civil) in North Zone, NPCC Ltd. Both of them were members of the Tender Committee along with another co-accused person P. K. Bhargava, who was the then Additional General Manager (Planning and Monitoring), NPCC Ltd., Faridabad. This committee had opened the tenders and had found the rates of M/s UCC to be the lowest for the major work and the rates of M/s Uma Shankar Sharma were found to be the lowest for the two smaller works.

13. The charge-sheet states that the rates of M/s UCC were the lowest 6 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 for all the items of major package of work whereas rates of M/s Uma Shankar Sharma were lowest for all the items for two smaller works. The three bids mentioned only item wise rates, as NPCC itself did not know the quantity of the work. Without item wise quantities of the work being disclosed, it is not possible to decide the total value of the work and it is practically impossible to decide the lowest bid. It is only when the item wise quantities are available that the total cost of work can be calculated by multiplying the item wise quantities with the item wise rates and thus the lowest bid can be decided.

14. The charge-sheet further states that the aforesaid facts and circumstances make out the criminal intent of the officers, including the applicants, who were involved in the tender process. The charge- sheet states that members of the tender committee did not raise any objection to the fact that the tender process was being undertaken without item wise quantities because as conspirators, they were sanguine about the receipt of offers in such a way that the rates of one particular agency would be the lowest for all the items of a particular work, which would render their task of deciding the lowest bid quite easy and simple, even without item-wise quantities.

15. Investigation has revealed that actually the rates of all the three agencies were decided by co-accused Praveen Pratap Singh in the office of NPCC itself.

16. The charge-sheet further states that on 01.09.2005, the tender committee had put up a note mentioning that M/s UCC’ s request had been processed for enhancing their limit for registration up to Rs. 50 Crores. The tender committee referred to the correspondence placed on the file. M/s UCC had been registered with NPCC on

19.04.2005 only in the category of canal and water resources work for the limit of Rs. 5 Crores and in the category of roads and bridges works for the limit of Rs. 10 Crores. However, the limit of the agency has not been revised.

17. The applicants had sought their discharge stating that the applicant no. 2-R.C. Sharma had merely forwarded the proposal of co-accused Sunil Gupta, the then Executive Engineer Civil, North Zone, NPCC 7 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 Ltd. As members of the tender committee, the applicants could have scrutinized only those tenders which had been submitted by the participating firms/companies. The applicants had no other role to perform in allotment of the works. The major role in allotment of the work had been played by the main accused-CMD of the company, who has not been charged.

18. The prayer for discharge of the applicants was opposed by the CBI stating that there was ample evidence to establish that the applicants had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the other accused persons to provide undue benefit to M/s UCC and they have played an active role in the tender process. They have completed the tender process without availability of the entire quantity of work and without item-wise quantities. The lowest bid could not have been ascertained without the entire quantity of work and item-wise quantities. The CBI contended that the accused persons abused their position, entered into a criminal conspiracy and tried to project a wrong tender process as a legally completed work.

19. The trial court held that from the evidence collected by CBI it appears that a criminal conspiracy was hatched for giving undue benefit of crores of rupees to a firm of a relative of the then Irrigation Minister and it was in furtherance of that conspiracy that the limited tender process was adopted. Even in that limited tender process, instead of a clean competition, a fake competition was projected, a firm was freshly constituted for the purpose, it was registered with NPCC, it was allotted the work and it further sublet the work at half the rates and thereby misappropriated public money. There is ample evidence against the applicants that they have played an important role in award of the work to M/s UCC, Unnao at exorbitant rates and they have projected a false competition between firms in violation of the guidelines contained in Office Memoranda dated 06.03.2002 and 20.10.2003 issued by CVC. The trial court has recorded in the order that in spite of sufficient time having been given, the applicants could not produce any rule or regulation before the court which prohibits publication of open tender for conducting such huge works. 8 A482 No. 6292 of 2025

20. Regarding the plea of the applicants that the then CMD has not been made an accused, the trial court held that although the Investigating Officer has not charge-sheeted him, in case any evidence comes to light against him during trial, he may be summoned to face the trial under Section 319 Cr.P.C. Merely because the CMD has not been made an accused, the applicants do not get a right to be discharged.

21. Sri Purnendu Chakravarty, the learned counsel for the applicants has submitted that the applicants were holding the posts of Assistant Executive Engineer and Assistant Accounts Officer and they were not the decision-making authorities. They have merely carried out the instructions of their superiors in performance of their duties and they are not guilty, of commission of any offence. He has drawn attention of the Court to the statement of Sri K.K. Gupta, Executive Assistant to the Chairman-cum-Managing Director, NPCC Ltd. which merely make out certain acts committed by the applicants in performance of their official duties, as per the directions of their superior officers and he has submitted that the same does not make out commission of any offence by the applicants and no case of trial of the applicants is made out.

22. Per contra, Sri Akash Prasad, the learned counsel for the respondent- CBI has submitted that the allegation against the applicants is of having violated the relevant rules and procedures for awarding the major work to M/s UCC although it was not eligible to execute the work. Had the work been awarded through open tender process, there would have been competition of rates resulting into better rates to the Irrigation Department, U.P. By their acts of commission and omission, the applicants have caused a wrongful pecuniary advantage to M/s UCC and corresponding wrongful loss to the public exchequer. He has submitted that the applicants have rightly been charged with commission of offences under Sections 120-B IPC read with Sections 420 IPC and 13(2) & 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

23. Sri Purnendu Chakravarty, the learned Counsel for the petitioners, has next submitted that Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as it stood at the relevant time) provided as 9 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 follows: - “13.Criminal misconduct by a pubic servant. – (1) A public servant is said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct, - (d) if he, — * * * (i) by corrupt or illegal means, obtains for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage; or (ii) by abusing his position as a public servant, obtains for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage; or (iii) while holding office as a public servant, obtains for any person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage without any public interest; * * *”

24. He has submitted that there is no allegation that any of the applicants has obtained any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage.

25. Refuting the aforesaid submission, Sri Akash Prasad, the learned counsel for the respondent-CBI has submitted that for applicability of Section 13(1)(d), it is not necessary that the accused person should have obtained any undue advantage for himself as the section itself provides that if any person obtains for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or any pecuniary advantage then he would be covered under this section. Therefore, merely because there is no material at this stage to establish that the applicants had obtained any pecuniary advantage for themselves, it cannot be said that no case for trial of the applicants for offences under Section 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) is made out.

26. The scope of inquiry while examining the validity of a charge-sheet or deciding an application seeking discharge of an accused person is limited so as to see whether there is sufficient material for trial of the accused person. The correctness of the allegations or the weight of the prosecution evidence is not to be examined at this stage. The facts of the case reveal that there is ample material to show that the Irrigation Department, Government of U.P. required certain works to be conducted. The works were awarded to M/s NPCC Ltd. through limited tender process, without adopting the open tender process- which is the normal practice for awarding government contracts. The trial court has recorded that even after granting sufficient time, 10 A482 No. 6292 of 2025 the accused persons could not produce any rule or regulation prohibiting adoption of open tender process and justifying the limited tender process for awarding the contracts in question. Prima facie, it appears that the contract was awarded to M/s NPCC Ltd. in an illegal manner,. M/s NPCC Ltd. in turn sublet the contact to M/s UCC Ltd. and M/s UCC further sublet the contract to M/s. Sri Sai Earthworks Constructions at about half the contract value thereby causing wrongful the public exchequer. Numerous officers/officials were involved in the entire process. Being members of the tender committee, the applicants had vital roles to play in acceptance of the tenders of M/s UCC Ltd.- a company which had been registered with M/s NPCC Ltd. only on 19.04.2005 for carrying out excavation works worth up to Rs. 5 Crores only which limit was proposed to be enhanced to Rs. 50 Crores and the company was awarded the contract worth Rs.31.815 Crores without actual enhancement of the limit.

27. Without making any further observation which may affect the outcome of the trial, I am of the considered view that the aforesaid facts clearly make out a case of trial of the applicants.

28. The trial court has not committed any error or illegality in rejecting their discharge application.

29. The application lacks merit and the same is dismissed. October 7, 2025 Pradeep/- (Subhash Vidyarthi,J.) PRADEEP SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench