- (1.) PALOK Basu, J. This writ petition was filed before this Court by the petitioner, Indra Pal Singh Tomar, praying for quashing of the order of the State Government suspending him from the post of Regional Ayurvedic and Unani Officer, Muzaffarnagar. This, in due course, indicated that several writ petitions have been filed as also petitions under Section 482, Cr. P. C. , have been filed, not only at Allahabad but also at Lucknow Bench of this Court, which related to the alleged excess withdrawal of about Rs. 48 crores from State Exchequer without budgetary allocation. It also came to light the even an FIR has been lodged by the State Govern ment on 3-11-1995 through Sri Yashwardhan Sinha, the then Deputy Secretary, Medical and Health Department of the State but neither any investigation has proceeded nor any tangible result from the investigation was made known till then. As a result the CBI was thought as the only fit investigating agency to look into the matter and, therefore, the need of investigation by the CBI arose. Necessary directions were issued by the Court and ultimately the State Government came out with necessary notification directing the investigation of that FIR dated 3-11-1995 and all other connected matters to be entrusted to the CBI for investigation. Consequent upon those notifications the CBI registered the case on 6-8-1996 and for all practical purpose the word Ayurved Scam' would now refer to the FIR that has been registered by the CBI as Case Crime No. 32-A of Police Station Hazratganj, Lucknow.
(2.) THE State of U. P. then made an application before Hon'ble the Chief Jus tice for directing a Bench of not less than two Judges to be constituted which may hear the cases at Allahabad and also at Lucknow whether they be Criminal or Civil in nature. The Hon'ble the Chief Justice passed the following order: "the pending cases, list of which has been furnished with application and other connected cases pending, or which may be filed, will be listed before the Division Bench presided over by Hon'ble Palok Basu to be heard at respective places of filing. Sd/-Chief Justice 31-7-1996. " While hearing of the petitions at Lucknow and Allahabad began, the CBI in its turn went on with the investigation and submitted its report from time to time to the the Court which was seized with the matter. By a detailed judgment running into 161 pages this Court dismissed the writ petitions and 482 application praying for quashing of the charge-sheet or the disciplinary proceedings and issued neces sary direction for completion of the Inves tigation as also the disciplinary proceed ings against all the employees who were involved in those cases. It may be pointed out that the machination of the then Director of the Ayurvedic and Unani Directorate, U. P. , Lucknow with the help and connivance of the various other of ficers posted in the State of U. P. or various institutions hospitals and other Branches of the Directorate have been noticed by the CBI. The investigation report sub mitted by the CBI from time to time indi cated that some charge-sheets were being filed by them while the investigation in the case was being continued in order to bring all the accused to book who are connected or may be connected with the alleged of fences.
(3.) DURING the course of investigation it was revealed by the CBI that a Minister, namely, Sri Balram Yadav and an IAS of ficer, namely, Sri R. K. Sharma were in volved in the fraudulent withdrawal of the amount from the State Exchequer. In this connection it may be pointed out that had S. A. T. Rizvi, the then Principal Secretary Finance not issued restraint order dated 26-3-1994 an amount equivalent to the amount alleged above might also have been withdrawn on allegedly false will etc. In the report of the CBI dated 25-11-1996 and 7-1-1997 and also the con tents of some other report submitted to the Court it tantatively appears that the CBI had collected all materials against those two accused also. Consequently, a charge-sheet was filed by the CBI showing these two as accused (i. e. Sri Balram Yadav and Sri R. K. Sharma) with other accused.;