Former NPL employee sentenced to 3-yr jail in corruption case

A 60-year-old former employee of National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court for misusing his official position by forging several bills and causing loss to the state exchequer.
Special CBI judge Swarana Kanta Sharma also awarded similar jail term to Vijay Kumar Gupta in 25 similar cases in which he had cheated and forged 76 bills and as many purchase orders of NPL by abusing his official position and causing undue loss of Rs 22,51,359 to the exchequer.
According to the CBI, out of the 26 cases, the present case relates to cheating and forgery of three bills and three purchase orders of NPL by which Gupta had cheated the Kendriya Bhandar.

CBI had said that Gupta while working as Assistant (S&P) Grade-I in Central Stores of NPL here in 2001-02 had abused his official position by obtaining goods worth Rs 1,64,348 from the Kendriya Bhandar Stationary Division in NPL's name by giving forged purchase orders.
NPL is the National Metrology Institute of India and a premier research laboratory in the field of physical sciences.
The judge held Gupta guilty of cheating, forgery, using forged documents under the IPC and misusing his official position under the provisions of Corruption Act.

In this case, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 on Gupta, who has been granted bail till July 16 to file an appeal in the superior court against this judgement.

The court also rejected the contention of Gupta's counsel that they were not his signatures on the bills and he was entitled for benefit of doubt as some witnesses have said they were not sure if the signatures were of the accused.
"I am of the opinion that the act of the accused was not a single isolated incident of forgery, abuse of position, cheating and use of forged documents known to be forged so as to justify the contention of the counsel for the accused.
"Rather, it was a continuous chain and series of similar overt acts which were done by the accused with particular knowledge...," the judge said.