Davinder Singh Babla
CONGRESS COUNCILLOR Davinder Singh Babla has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court against his recent conviction for cheating and forgery in the allotment of sheds at Sector 26 Grain Market in 2009 and has sought suspension of his one-and-a-half-year sentence during the pendency of the revision plea.
Babla’s criminal revision plea has been listed for hearing on April 18. In his plea, Babla has said that the inquiry done by Additional Deputy Commissioner P S Shergill in the case “has not been authenticated by any evidence on record” and Shergill has not been examined by the prosecution during the probe.
A lower court had convicted Babla on March 28 on the appeal filed by the Chandigarh Administration against his acquittal under the two charges in the judgment pronounced by trail court in 2014. Babla had been earlier convicted only under sections 465 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the IPC and was released on probation.
The case against Babla had been registered in 2009 on the complaint filed by Suraj Prakash Ahuja who had said that Babla, who was then chairman of the Market Committee, and others had demanded illegal gratification for allotment of two sheds at the Sector 26 market. Babla and others had also been accused of fabricating and tampering of the records of the market committee, and later in a probe found to have included at least 16 allotees in the auction who had never submitted any application for the allotment.
The appeal court at the Chandigarh District Courts in its judgment while holding Babla also guilty of cheating and forgery said, “This court is fully convinced that Ld. Trial court had shown misplaced sympathy for the accused by extending him benefit of probation even after giving the finding that the accused had manipulated list of allottees in order to cause loss to the original licensees and to extend advantage to his near and dears.”
It had also been noted in the judgment that “trial court had held the accused guilty for commission of offences punishable under Section 465 and 471 of Indian Penal Code. Trial court was fully convinced about fabrication of the record by the accused then it was also established that he had committed the forgery in order to extend unlawful benefit to some persons of his choice…”