Mumbai: A special CBI court has discharged five former
Jet Airways pilots from a case where they were booked for allegedly bribing a public servant to get their Provident Fund (PF) released, holding that the material did not show that the employees gave money to obtain any out-of-turn benefit.
Special judge Nikhil P Mehta passed orders on Wednesday and Thursday, allowing discharge pleas filed by Baikunth Nayak, Kakarlapudi Kumar, Bejoy James, Sam Thomas, and Kedar Gokhale.
“Public duties performed improperly when a public servant carries it out unfairly in a manner that favours one person or outcome over another in exchange for undue advantage. In this case, no favour is done to the applicants. Further, their claims were not settled out of turn by accused 1 (Machindra Bamne). There is no bypassing of any fair procedure,” the judge said.
Bamne was then a senior social security assistant/dealing assistant in the accounts section at Employees Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) Kandivli East regional office.
The judge further noted that the accused were not favoured when their claim was settled. “There was no expeditious release of claim on payment of deposit by applicant with Bamne’s wife.
On the other hand, the claim was settled as per rule belatedly only after they were compelled to deposit money with Bamne’s wife,” the judge said in five separate orders.
Kumar, James and Thomas were represented by Chaitnya B Nikte with Vishal L Tiwari and Prajit Sahane, while Nayak and Gokhale were represented by Rahul Mishra with Kajal Nishad.
The judge said that while the charges paid by the applicants can be said to be undue advantage for Bamne, he was asked to perform his public duty properly for settling the claim. “In this case question of improper performance of duty by Bamne does not arise as applicants were forced to pay money for proper performance of public duty by accused…The illustration to Section 8 (Prevention of Corruption Act) goes to show that only when out of turn preference is given by public servant, after receipt of undue advantage and no compulsion was made to give undue advantage only in that case Section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act would be applicable,” the judge said.
R W Syiem, Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-I (Vigilance), EPFO, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, alleged that Bamne accepted illegal gratification from PF claimants. The allegation was that Bamne received money through online transfers into bank accounts held by him and his wife, Rupali, from employees of various establishments for processing claim settlements.
The court also dealt with the failure to report the payment to law enforcement. “It is true that applicants, despite being compelled to pay charges with consultancy firm run by Bamne, did not lodge report to law and enforcement authority within stipulated time from the date of deposit of charge or money for facilitating PF settlement, but that would not by itself give ground to prosecute applicants…under Prevention of Corruption Act, as they were not knowing of the said provision.”
The CBI alleged that suspicious credits of Rs 1.77 lakh were received in accounts linked to Bamne and his wife from Jet Airways employees between 2019 and 2021. According to the prosecution, Bamne obtained undue advantage from 13 private persons, including the five pilots, for processing PF claims.
Against Kumar, the CBI alleged payments of Rs 10,000 on Dec 12, 2019, and Rs 10,000 on Dec 29, 2019, to the joint account of Bamne and his wife, in relation to claims of Rs 35 lakh processed on Dec 3, 2019, and Rs 37 lakh processed on Jan 7, 2020. Against James, the allegation was a payment of Rs 10,000 on Oct 2, 2020, to the joint account, after a claim of Rs 30 lakh was processed on Dec 18, 2019. Against Thomas, the CBI alleged payments of Rs 10,000 on Sept 9, 2019, Rs 10,000 on Sept 17, 2019, and Rs 20,000 on Sept 27, 2019, to Rupali’s account, in relation to claims of Rs 1.64 crore processed on Sept 4, 2019, and Rs 33.47 lakh processed on Sept 11, 2019.
For Nayak, the prosecution alleged payments of Rs 5,000 and Rs 4,000 on May 6, 2021, to the joint account of Bamne and his wife with a claim of Rs 24.5 lakh processed the same day. For Gokhale, the CBI alleged a payment of Rs 4,000 on Aug 31, 2019, to Rupali’s account, while a claim of Rs 1.04 lakh had been processed on Aug 14, 2019.
The prosecution relied on the statement of EPFO official Hemant Lokhande, who said Jet Airways employees used to visit the EPFO office to meet Bamne.
The CBI submitted that Lokhande had stated that Bamne was taking bribes from Jet Airways claimants and that there were heated arguments in the office because claims were being rejected on trivial grounds. The prosecution also contended that the applicants had not properly explained how contact was established with Bamne or the consultancy said to be run by Rupali.