The Special Court (Prevention of corruption act), Nagpur Shri. S.S. Deshpande acquitted Nanak Waswani of the charges u/S 13(1)(d) r/w sec 13(2) of The Prevention of Corruption Act. The prosecution hammered on the open inquiry that was conducted against Nanak Waswani, in respect of misuse of his official position, whereby, it was alleged that, Waswani had deliberately proceeded to withold a building sanction file, with a malafide intention to give benefit for construction of a building by invoking the provisions of deemed sanction and of which a plan was submitted by Smt. IndrayaniButy, which was subsequently constructed by Haldirams on Abhayankar Road, Sitabuldi, Nagpur. The prosecution alleged that after detailed and through inquiry, a chargesheet was filed against Mr. Nanak Waswani on the allegation that he had abused his official position by deliberately keeping the proposed sanction file of the building plan pending on his table, with an oblique intention to allow the applicant to take advantage of the provisions of law and that by taking advantage of the same, Haldirams could construct a building by resorting to the provisions of deemed sanction, since the department had neither allowed nor rejected the proposed building sanction within a stipulated period of timeframe.
The prosecution had examined as many as 15 witnesses in an attempt to bring home the guilt against Mr. Waswani. The defence cross examined the prosecution witnesses at length and even brought positive and cogent admissions adverse to the prosecutions allegations in the cross examination, whereby, the prosecution witnesses admitted in their cross examinations that the said file was not retained on the table of Mr Waswani. Advocate Prakash Naidu appearing for Mr Nanak Waswani also brought concrete admissions from the mouth of prosecution witnesses, whereby they succumbed to admitting that it was not the duty of Mr Waswani to allow or reject the alleged sanction plan. It was also brought on record, that though the writ petition filed by Mrs. Buty was dismissed by the Hon’ble High Court, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur in 1989, but the land acquisition officer did not initiate any action and allowed the acquisition proceedings to lapse. So also, the witnesses in cross examination admitted that the map, that was submitted by Mr. Agrawal, acting as a power of Attorney holder for Mrs. Buty, did not comply the rules and regulations of N.I.T. The witnesses even admitted that, in view of the aforestated factuality’s, it was duty incumbent upon the junior engineer to have scrutinized these facts at the threshold itself and that the junior engineer was under a legal obligation to have rejected the plan as soon as it was received in their office on account of its discrepancies. The defence argued that Mr Waswani had been made a scapegoat and that those interested in tarnishing his position and image had successfully roped him in a false and fabricated inquiry, which resulted in Waswani facing unwarranted prosecution.
Taking into consideration the documents, the evidence on record and the arguments advanced, the Special Court concluded that Mr. Nanak Waswani had no role in causing deliberate delay with regards to the alleged building sanction plan, nor was the prosecution able to prove the alleged charges that were slapped against him and acquitted him of the said charges.
Advocate Prakash Naidu assisted by Adv. PankajThakre, Rahul Rathe, HomeshChavhan, SurabhiGodbole, MiteshBais represented Nanak Waswani. Advocate VasantNarsapurkar represented the State.
