Srinagar, Sep 2: A Special Anti-Corruption Court in Srinagar has acquitted senior PDP leader and former minister Naeem Akhtar Andrabi, along with two former officials of the J&K Projects Construction Corporation (JKPCC), in a 2019 corruption case.
Special Judge Anti-Corruption, Surinder Singh, in a 27-page order passed on August 29, ruled that the charges were “groundless” and dismissed the chargesheet filed in 2021. “No case for framing of charge against the accused is made out… accused shall stand discharged accordingly. Their bail bonds shall stand discharged,” the order stated.
The Crime Branch of J&K Police had filed an FIR in 2019 against Akhtar, then JKPCC managing director Vikar Mustafa Shonthu, and company secretary Neeru Chadha under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The case was based on a government report alleging irregularities in Shonthu’s appointment as JKPCC managing director in March 2018, when Akhtar was chairman of the corporation’s board.
The report, prepared by a fact-finding committee in March 2019, termed Shonthu’s appointment “illegal and in gross violation of rules.” The issue surfaced after the fall of the PDP-BJP government in June 2018. Following sanction from the government in April 2021, the prosecution filed a chargesheet against the trio.
However, the court observed that no evidence suggested Akhtar had misused his position for personal gain. Even if procedural lapses occurred, the judge said, they amounted to departmental irregularities rather than criminal misconduct.
The court stressed that a criminal court cannot act as a “mouthpiece of prosecution” and should not frame charges without sufficient material. “Calling a person to face charges without evidence would violate fundamental rights,” the judge noted, adding that no proof of conspiracy or collusion among the accused had emerged.
Concluding that there was “no iota of evidence” to substantiate the allegations, the court dropped charges under both the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Ranbir Penal Code. “There appears no ground for proceeding against the accused; as such, they deserve to be discharged of the charges levelled,” the order said.
