The Allahabad high court has rejected the bail application of Bhikhari Singh, the then chairman of Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Construction and Development Ltd (UPCCDL), Lucknow, and Vinod Singh, the then managing director (MD) of UPCCDL, who were accused of misappropriation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) funds.
Rejecting the bail application of Bhikhari Singh and Vinod Singh, Justice Samit Gopal observed, “The present case is a case of misappropriation of government funds which were allotted for development and betterment of block areas in the district. The money was disbursed in advance but the work was not done/completed. There was a conspiracy within the society for swindling off the funds received as advance in which the accused persons succeeded. The state exchequer thus suffered a loss with equal personal gain to the accused persons by not doing the allotted work in spite of money being paid in advance”.
In this backdrop, the court in its order dated August 18 rejected their bail applications, observing, “Looking to the positive nature of evidence, the charge-sheet submitted against the applicants and the previous criminal antecedents, I do not find it a fit case for bail”.
Earlier, a writ petition (Sachchidanand Gupta (Sachchey) Vs Union of India) was filed before the high court alleging misappropriation of funds allotted to different districts of Uttar Pradesh by the central government under the MGNREGA Act, 2005.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court had on January 31, 2014, while allowing the writ petition directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the abuse and misappropriation of fund as well as the abuse of power under MGNREGA with regard to seven districts of Uttar Pradesh namely Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Sant Kabir Nagar, Mirzapur and Kushinagar from 2007 to 2010 with appropriate action and prosecution in accordance with law.
In pursuance of the direction of high court, the CBI registered a criminal case in this connection at CBI police station in Ghaziabad district. After investigation, the CBI submitted chargesheet against accused applicants Bhikhari Singh and Vinod Singh.
During the court proceedings, the counsel for the applicants contended that the allegations against the applicants were totally baseless and without any credible evidence. Hence, they were entitled for bail, they said.
However, while opposing their bail application, the counsel for CBI argued that the applicants entered into a conspiracy with other accused persons and were involved in misappropriation of funds. He further argued that the applicants are even involved in identical cases which are of previous years and this is a repetition of the offence.
