The Delhi high court has rapped an additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) for acquitting custom officers in a corruption case.
Coming down heavily on the ACMM, Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra said, “The learned ACMM seemed to have acted more like a clerk than like a judge and was happy in discharging everybody on the ground that there was no investigation on the point how the goods were allegedly exported.”
Setting aside the ACCM order, Justice Dhingra said, a judge is under obligation to ensure that a criminal did not go scot free on mere technical grounds.
The ACCM had earlier acquitted the custom officers on the ground that Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had failed to conduct proper investigation and evidences were not collected to prosecute them.
The high court, which has not disclosed the name of the ACMM, further said that a judge has enough power to summon additional evidence suo motu and he is not supposed to act only as an umpire to blow whistle.
“We follow adversarial system of prosecuting criminals but a judge is not supposed to act only as an umpire to blow whistle. A judge has certain duties assigned to him under law to ensure that those who commit crime do not go scot free on mere technical grounds,” the court said while setting aside the order.
Justice Dhingra said instead of taking appropriate action, which is required on the part of a judge, to bring culprits to justice, the ACCM allowed them to go scot free.