Lucknow, Feb 28 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday concurred with the CBI closure report that the death of deputy chief medical officer Dr YS Sachan, an accused in the NRHM scam, was a case of suicide.

The Lucknow bench of the high court set aside a July 2022 order of a Special Judicial Magistrate that rejected the CBI report and had summoned some retired and serving government officers to face trial for allegedly committing conspiracy to murder.

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"The findings of the CBI have been in detail to highlight as to how detailed scientific, meticulous and fair investigation was carried out for reaching the conclusion that it was not a case of homicide, but suicide," the high court held.

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"There should have been overwhelming material and evidence to ignore CBI's closure report. There has been nothing before the magistrate to discard the reports submitted by the CBI," Justice DK Singh said, adding the summoning order for such a serious offence was "preposterous and to some extent outrageous".

While in Lucknow district jail in connection with the murder of two CMOs VK Arya and BP Singh, Sachan was found dead on the first floor of an unused toilet of the prison hospital on June 22, 2011.

Sachan's wife Malti had lodged an FIR with Gosainganj police.

Later, CBI took up the probe and filed a closure report in the case. On the court's order, the CBI took up further investigation, but again found no evidence of murder and yet again filed a closure report.

However, Malti filed a protest application in the court to cancel the closure report and summon the accused for trial.

The special judicial magistrate CBI passed the summoning order on July 7, 2022 directing Subesh Kumar Singh, VK Gupta, Bhim Sen Mukund, Karamvir Singh, Sunil Kumar Singh, Pahind Singh and Babu Ram Dubey, who are retired or serving government officers, to appear in the court and face trial.

Challenging the order, the applicants had pleaded that while issuing the summons, the court failed to record reasons for summoning them under Section 302 read with Section 120-B IPC.

The summoning order neither reflects an application of mind nor does it deal with the investigation reports submitted by the CBI on every aspect and allegations, added the applicants.

Passing the order, the high court also observed, "In the absence of order of sanction for prosecution of the applicants for the offence in question, the order of cognisance is bad in law and is liable to be set aside.

"Even otherwise, the summoning order, which would disclose non-application of mind by the Magistrate and without there being any overwhelming evidence and material to discard the closure reports filed by the CBI under Section 173 (2) CrPC, summoning the applicants, who are retired/serving government officers to face trial for such a serious offence under Section 302 read with Section 120-B IPC, is preposterous and to some extent outrageous."

In the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission scam, the CBI had alleged that officials in-charge of funds from the Centre allegedly acted hand-in-glove with the contractors to create fraudulent reimbursement bills in the name of hiring vehicles and medicine purchases to withdraw funds for personal gains.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)