Mumbai: An Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) of Mumbai has been declared an absconder by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) after being accused of demanding a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from a petitioner.
The ASJ’s clerk-cum-typist, Chandrakant Vasudev, has been arrested by the ACB that laid a trap after receiving a complaint from the petitioner. It was Vasudev who was to receive the money and hand it over the ASJ named Ejazuddin Kazi (55).
The complainant’s wife had earlier filed a petition in the Bombay High Court in 2015 regarding the forcible possession of the company’s land. Since the high court does not deal with cases that are worth less than Rs 10 crore, it transferred the matter to a civil sessions court as a commercial suit in March 2024 where the accused judge was hearing the matter.
In September this year, Vasudev contacted the complainant and told him the judge would rule in their favour in exchange of Rs 25 lakh bribe. When the complainant did not respond positively, he allegedly contacted the complainant several times over the phone.
The complainant then approached the ACB, as he did not want to pay the bribe. The ACB verified his complaint following which they laid a trap on Tuesday evening.
The ACB asked the complainant to carry dummy notes of Rs 15 lakh. Vasudev was detained as soon as he accepted the money.
However, this was not enough to nail the ASJ. Hence, officials asked Vasudev to go ahead with their alleged original plan. He called up the judge and informed him that the money had been received. The judge responded in the affirmative and said that he was out of the city and may collect the cash the next day. Based on this recorded conversation, the ACB named the judge as an accused in the case.
The next morning, the judge l sent messages and called up the clerk a couple of times in the before heading to court, asking his whereabouts. It was later that he realised that the clerk had been arrested.
On Thursday, the ACB received permission to carry out a search of the ASJ’s house. However, by the time the team reached the Churchgate government quarters, the door was locked from the outside.
The team then sealed the lock and posted a constable outside the house. The ACB is likely to approach the relevant authority seeking permission to arrest the judge. ACB also carried out house search of Vasudev at his Uran residence.
This is the second case in the last 12 months in which a judge has been implicated for corruption. In December last year, Dhananjay Nikam, the ASJ of Satara was named as an accused in a corruption case for allegedly demanding Rs 5 lakh from a woman to release her father on bail. Nikam was dismissed from service by the Bombay High Court last month.
