Calcutta High Court quashes criminal case against CU professor

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against Professor Swapan Kumar Ghosh of the University of Calcutta (CU), accused in a case involving alleged forged vouchers and withdrawal of funds from a Central government-funded research project.

Holding that the materials collected during the investigation created only suspicion and not the “grave suspicion” required to justify a criminal trial, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh set aside the proceedings arising out of a 2018 case registered at Ballygunge police station, observing that continuation of the prosecution would amount to an abuse of the process of law. The case stemmed from a complaint lodged by Prof. Asis Mukhopadhyay, then head of the Department of Jute and Fibre Technology at the CU. The complaint alleged that signatures on several vouchers connected with a research and development project sponsored by the Union Ministry of Textiles had been forged and used to withdraw money through bearer cheques.

Police conducted an investigation and later filed a chargesheet as well as a supplementary chargesheet, relying on several witnesses and documents, including departmental vouchers, cheque leaves and bank records. During the investigation, bank authorities informed the police that some of the cheques connected with the case could not be traced as they had been damaged due to waterlogging in the basement of the bank branch.

The court examined multiple reports obtained from a handwriting expert during the investigation.

In several instances, the expert stated that it was not possible to determine the authorship of the disputed signatures from the available specimens.

In other instances, the expert found that certain disputed writings actually matched the handwriting of one Debashis Shome, whose name appeared on the cheques involved in the transactions.

Justice Ghosh also referred to the statements of witnesses cited in the chargesheet who told investigators that they had encashed cheques on the instructions of Shome and handed the withdrawn money over to him. The court held that the evidence collected by the investigating agency was inconsistent and did not inspire confidence.