Gurgaon: A city court has acquitted former MCG official Dilbagh Singh in a decade-old bribery case, holding that the prosecution failed to prove that he accepted Rs 2 lakh as part of a Rs 10-lakh bribe for construction approvals.The case rested on a CD containing a purported sting video, which the vigilance bureau said was found in its complaint box in 2011. The bribe had allegedly been sought for construction approvals of two buildings — one belonging to complainant Om Parkash and another to Singhal.During the trial, the prosecution relied heavily on Parkash’s statements, who claimed that he and Singhal met Singh in the basement of a building near Sector 5 to hand over the cash. He said the meeting was covertly filmed with a wristwatch camera, and the footage was later transferred to a CD that was anonymously delivered to the bureau.Additional sessions judge Amit Gautam found multiple inconsistencies in the prosecution’s version. In his testimony, Parkash failed to recall the date or month of the alleged transaction. He also admitted that he never filed a complaint against the former official at any stage. The court noted that despite claiming to have recorded the incident, Parkash did not produce the original device, the wristwatch camera or any document to show its purchase or ownership.The prosecution failed to produce key witnesses in the case. Singhal and his son, both said to be present when the money allegedly changed hands, were never examined. One of the MCG employees, to whom Parkash claimed to have handed the CD, denied receiving it.The court also rejected the CD on technical grounds, stating that the electronic evidence was inadmissible in the absence of a mandatory certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act. It said the source device was never seized, the chain of custody was “completely broken” and investigators did not conduct any voice sample comparison. These omissions, the judge observed, created serious doubt about the integrity of the footage and the possibility of tampering.Finding the complainant’s testimony “unnatural” and riddled with contradictions, the court held that the prosecution did not prove the essential ingredients of bribery — demand and acceptance — beyond a reasonable doubt. With no reliable corroboration and the principal electronic evidence ruled inadmissible, the court acquitted Dilbagh Singh of all charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
