New Delhi: A Delhi court dismissed former Deputy Controller of Accounts at Central Procurement Agency (CPA), Neeraj Chopra’s regular bail plea, observing that his alleged role in procurement irregularities CPA extended from approving tenders to processing payments, and that his actions, along with those of other accused, allegedly caused a wrongful loss of Rs 842 crore to the Delhi govt, “almost paralysing” its health care institutes.Special Judge Vidya Prakash noted that Chopra was allegedly involved at both the procurement approval and financial stages. “The material filed along with the chargesheet indicates his active participation, facilitation, movement of the files and processing of bills,” the judge observed.Opposing the bail plea, senior public prosecutor Kumar Sanjay submitted that Chopra approved bid files and participated in tender committees. Files and bills involving beneficiary entities, including co-accused Rajiv Kumar alias Rajiv Rangeela’s firm M/s F-Med Devices, were placed before him. He processed these and marked them to the cashier and subsequently to the DGHS for sanction and payment, the prosecution submitted.The prosecution further alleged that Chopra participated in tender decisions involving restrictive specifications, preferential treatment to favoured firms and arbitrary disqualification of competing bidders. The mandatory online GeM procurement process was allegedly abandoned midway in favour of manual purchase orders. The evidence against him includes official procurement and payment records, GeM data, financial records, electronic evidence and his signatures and handwriting on approval files. Witness Radha Raman Singh also alleged that Chopra took him to Rangeela’s residence, where he was intimidated.The judge observed that the accused allegedly violated General Financial Rules and CVC guidelines “just to cause illegal loss to the Govt. exchequer, and illegal gain to themselves.” Their actions, the court said, involved “criminal connivance” with other accused, embezzlement of govt property, deliberate destruction of evidence and misuse of official positions to influence colleagues and cheat other bidders.The court also noted that the alleged irregularities should have raised suspicion while recommending purchase orders for “selective entities” and approving bills. Such conduct had allegedly caused losses of “several hundred of crores” to the state exchequer, it observed.Rejecting the argument that filing of the chargesheet entitled Chopra to bail, the judge noted that further investigation was continuing into the financial trail, connected entities, electronic evidence and the role of co-accused Rajiv Kumar and others. “Mere filing of the charge-sheet does not, by itself, entitle the applicant/accused to be enlarged on bail,” the court held, adding that his detention was necessary for a “fair and unhindered investigation”.
