HPCL corruption case: Special CBI court acquits two

A special CBI court here has acquitted two persons in a corruption case, citing lack of evidence and the prosecution's failure to prove the charges.

Special judge P S Tarare recently acquitted a former convener of the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA), Ashok Singh, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) executive Shishir Kumar Dubey.

The CBI had filed the charge sheet against Singh, who was then Chief Regional Manager at HPCL's Vashi Regional Office, and station manager Dubey for allegedly manipulating petrol pump meter readings and misappropriating funds between 2004 and 2007.

The CBI in its charge sheet filed in 2010 stated that Dubey allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with Singh to misappropriate funds by "manipulating dip readings resulting in reporting of lower stock loss and mismatch between derived sales quantities and nozzle sales".

The charge sheet had also said that the two allegedly misused the fleet cards facility by not collecting amount in cash from select customers.

The CBI contended that Dubey in connivance with Singh manipulated Management Information System (MIS) to misappropriate funds and extend unauthorised discounts.

They extended unauthorised credit of over Rs 44.04 crore to 45 parties, resulting in loss of Rs 88.09 lakh to HPCL, the agency had said.

However, Dubey's lawyer informed the court that as per the statutory inspection report, there was no manipulation.

"This report is prepared by the area sales manager and he did not report any anomaly," said Dubey's lawyer Ninad Mazumdar.

He claimed that the company ignored the statutory report and made its own report, using a wrong formula.