Ex-Delhi Police DCP gets two-year jail in DA case

Former Deputy Commissioner of the Delhi Police Bhupinder Singh Bola, who was convicted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a disproportionate assets case, was on Friday sentenced to two years in jail  by a special court. Besides, the court has slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the 1993-batch IPS officer.

Bola was held guilty by the court for amassing assets worth over Rs 10 lakh disproportionate to his known sources of income in a 2001 case. However, the total income in the FIR registered against him in 2001 amounted to Rs 36,43,564 lakh.

On Thursday, Special CBI Judge Anju Bajaj Chandna had convicted Bola. The former IPS officer was convicted for the offence punishable under Section 13(2) (criminal misconduct by public servant) read with 13(1)(e) (possession of disproportionate assets by public servant) of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

According to the CBI, searches were conducted at Bola’s Delhi residence on July 6, 2001, when he was posted as the Managing Director of Pondicherry Distilleries. Assets worth Rs 10,07,850, including clothes amounting to Rs2,38,600, was recovered from his house.The accused had failed to explain the source of the recovered assets, the premier probe agency claimed.

Bola was booked in 2001on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Amit Vikram Bhardwaj, who alleged that the former DCP and his wife Parveen Bola possessed assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. Bola owned assets worth Rs 49.40,198 lakh.

In 2005, the CBI filed a charge-sheet under provisions of the PC Act. However, Bola has denied the allegations levelled against him, claiming that many articles recovered were gifted to him by his friends and relatives. But he could not provide any evidence to support his claims. A total of 321 items were recovered from Bola’s residence. Of these, Bola claimed that 98 were gifted to him.

During the trial, the CBI examined 45 witnesses and relied on 150 documents.

According to the charge-sheet, raids were conducted at Bola’s residence and other places, from where several documents were recovered. These documents confirmed that Bola owned one farmhouse, measuring 12 bighas and three biswas, at village Bijwasan worth Rs 31.20 lakh; an agricultural plot at village Chahar Majra in Ropar, Punjab, valued at Rs 2.12 lakh; one flat in police housing society, Mayur Vihar, Delhi; a farmland at village Saidpur in Sonepat, Haryana, worth Rs 2 lakh; two flats in East Delhi’s Krishana Nagar worth Rs 18.50 lakh.

The charge-sheet stated that the investigating agency had started trailing him from January 1989 to June 2001, while he was posted as Additional DCP North district.