J&K High Court Quashes Embezzlement Case Against Ex-Head Of SMHS Hospital, Says Expenditure Was ‘Motivated By Patient Care & Exigency’
In granting aid to a former Medical Superintendent of SMHS Hospital, Srinagar, the Jammu & Kashmir Excessive Court docket has quashed legal proceedings in opposition to the petitioner in an embezzlement case, holding that his conduct lacked mens rea and was already ratified by competent authorities.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar noticed that though there might have been procedural irregularities, “the one intention of the petitioner in doing so was to care for excessive urgency that had arisen on account of weird circumstances which had prevailed pursuant to Amarnath Land row and the stated motion of the petitioner was even ratified by the Hospital Growth Committee.”
The prosecution had alleged that between April 2007 and December 2009, a complete quantity of ₹1.02 crore was embezzled from SMHS Hospital accounts.
The petitioner, then Medical Superintendent, was accused of irregularly utilising ₹16.45 lakh from the Hospital Growth Fund (HDF) with out prior approval.
The court docket stated that “mere lack of supervision on the a part of the petitioner can not kind a foundation for roping him within the conspiracy, notably when he isn’t a signatory to the account books pertaining to these two account heads”The Court docket famous that whereas the petitioner had supervisory management over the accounts part, he was not the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) for these account heads which have been central to the alleged embezzlement and that accountability lay with varied Accounts Officers throughout the related interval.
It noticed that “the petitioner was neither chargeable for sustaining the money e book nor for remittance into the Treasury. His legal responsibility, at worst, might be termed a scarcity of supervision, not conspiracy.”
The Court docket took under consideration materials from the Case Diary, together with an Workplace Memorandum and minutes of conferences signed by then-MLAs Mubarak Gul and Dr. Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, ratifying the petitioner’s actions.
Furthermore, the federal government had solely issued a warning in opposition to the petitioner in departmental proceedings and each departmental enquiry committees had exonerated him of any monetary wrongdoing.
The petitioner had cited public well being exigencies throughout the 2008 unrest as the explanation for spending ₹16.45 lakh from the Hospital Growth Fund on important medicine, gasoline for ambulances, and repairs.
The Court docket acknowledged that whereas some procedural norms have been bypassed, the actions have been taken below emergency situations and have been later validated by competent authorities.
The Court docket additionally famous that vouchers amounting to ₹16.83 lakh had been recovered throughout the investigation, though the originals have been broken within the 2014 floods.
The court docket additionally counting on the Supreme Court docket’s ruling in Ashoo Surendranath Tewari v. CBI (2020), by which it was held that when an individual is exonerated in departmental proceedings based mostly on the identical info, continuation of legal prosecution would quantity to abuse of strategy of legislation.
APPEARANCE:
Salih Pirzada, Advocate, with Ms. Sharaf Wani, Advocate, Bhat Shafi, Advocate., Advocate for Petitioners
Mohsin Qadiri, Sr. AAG, with Ms. Nadiya Abdullah, Aiding Counsel.Mr. Mohammad Saleem Qureshi (Inspector, I.O. ACB, South Wing)
Case-Title: WASEEM QURESHI vs STATE OF J&Okay AND ANOTHER , 2025
