Case of Vijay Dahiya: Panchkula court rejects ACB’s request to designate co-accused approver

An appeal by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to add Vijay Singh Dahiya, an IAS official from Haryana who was assigned as Commissioner and Secretary to the state government’s Archives Department in 2001, as a co-accused approver in the corruption case against him was denied by a Panchkula court.

The allegations against him stem from his purported receipt of bribes to settle invoices while serving as the Secretary and Commissioner of the Department of Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.

For the last ten years, complainant Rinku Manchanda, a native of Fatehabad, has been operating Gramin Shiksha, an educational institution that trains underprivileged children in computer, air conditioning technician, beauty parlor, and other fields as part of the Haryana Skill Development Mission. He had spent the last three years trying in vain to have his payments totaling Rs 50 lakh processed.

The ACB claims that Deepak Sharma, the Chief Skill Officer (CSO) of the Haryana Skill Development Mission, instructed Manchanda to meet with Delhi resident Poonam Chopra in order to clear invoices. Chopra promised to speak with Dahiya.

After that, Chopra is said to have requested a payment of Rs 5 lakh from Manchanda, who subsequently paid Rs 2 lakh. According to the ACB, she also sent Dahiya’s WhatsApp communications, in which he claimed to have cleared the payment files.

An FIR was filed when Manchanda sought the ACB. On April 20, 2023, the ACB set up a trap and apprehended Chopra while accepting a Rs 3 lakh bribe. He was later the subject of a chargesheet, and on October 10, 2023, he was taken into custody.

The ACB petitioned the court in January to pardon Deepak Sharma and appoint him as an approver in the case. The court was informed that Sharma had acknowledged contacting Dahiya before requesting Rs 5 lakh from Manchanda. He had urged him to meet Chopra when the invoices had not been paid.

The ACB notified the court that Sharma had admitted in a statement made under Section 164, CrPC (a statement before a magistrate) to having taken and given Rs 13 lakh as bribe from several training partners at Dahiya’s request at his home.

The ACB application was disputed by Dahiya’s lawyer, DS Chawla, who claimed that it was in Sharma’s favor.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge PK Lal decided that the only person who could become an approver was an accomplice, or a collaborator in crime. The ruling also said that Sharma argued in his high court motion for anticipatory release that he was coerced by the investigative body into making his Section 164 statement under the false pretense that he would be appointed an approver.

The court found that the ACB’s motion was “without any justification” and that Sharma’s readiness to serve as an approver was “just an attempt to save his own skin from the consequences of the case.”