Court summons pvt school chairman, court staff in theft case

A Delhi court has summoned as accused the chairman of a private school here and a court staff in a case of theft of judicial documents and criminal breach of trust by a public servant.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Savitri rejected the application of Delhi Police to treat the charge sheet filed in the case as cancelled and to order a further probe into the case.
The CMM took cognisance of the offences and said there was "sufficient ground to proceed" against the school chairman, who has been a former executive magistrate, and the court official.
"In the present case, interestingly no reasons have been disclosed by the ACP for making the application as such. IO SI Pramod Kumar had filed challan duly forwarded by the then SHO Inspector Gajender Kumar and then ACP Virender Kumar. Later on another ACP Iqbal Mohd wanted to withdraw the challan (charge sheet). The application is, therefore, dismissed.

"It is important to note that in the present matter the challan has been filed after directions for further investigation have been issued by courts a couple of times and the FIR was registered on complaint made on behalf of District and Sessions Judge, Delhi.
"I take cognisance of offence in question as there is sufficient ground to proceed. Accordingly, both the accused persons since they have been challaned in the matter are required to be summoned," the CMM said while summoning them for the offences of theft, criminal breach of trust by public servant and criminal conspiracy under the IPC.

The court has fixed September 5 for further hearing.

A complaint was made by a district and sessions judge in 2005 regarding theft of judicial documents from the court file in a cheque bounce case of 2000.
The theft of judicial documents came to light when a court summoned the file of case and found that a cheque of Rs 15 lakh, issued in favour of the school chairman, and a letter were missing.
The police, in its charge sheet filed last year in the theft case, had said when the matter of theft of documents came to light, the official was found in possession of the file pertaining to the cheque bounce case.

The police alleged that the file was given to the official, then a record keeper in a court here, by another court staff.
"Without any proof it cannot be said that the official was directly or indirectly involved in the theft of the documents," it had said in its charge sheet.
It had added that the school chairman had repeatedly applied for certified copies of documents of the cheque bounce case and had inspected the file several times.