Team Goemkarponn
MAPUSA: The Additional Sessions Court in Mapusa has turned down an application filed by former Chief Minister and sitting MLA Digambar Kamat seeking to have three prosecution witnesses named as accused in the Louis Berger bribery case.
The court held that statements recorded during the investigation stage cannot, by themselves, form the basis for invoking Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which empowers courts to summon additional accused.
Kamat had urged the court to summon Shiv Ramprasad Malladi, Sanjay Jindal and Prasanna Shah as accused, contending that their recorded statements revealed their direct role in collecting, receiving and delivering alleged bribes linked to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-funded water supply and sewerage project in Goa.
He argued that the statements amounted to confessional admissions that clearly established their involvement in the alleged offence of bribery, making them co-conspirators rather than mere witnesses.
The prosecution opposed the plea, submitting that the three individuals were not decision-makers within the Louis Berger group. The State maintained that they acted on instructions from their superiors and under compulsion, without deriving any personal benefit from the alleged transactions. According to the prosecution, the witnesses functioned as intermediaries who complied with directions due to fear of losing employment or business ties.
Responding to these arguments, Kamat’s counsel asserted that sufficient material was already available on record for the court to act. He alleged that the investigating agency had selectively proceeded against Kamat—shown as accused number eight—and other accused, while excluding the three witnesses despite evidence pointing to their role.
After considering submissions from both sides, Additional Sessions Judge Dvijple Patkar dismissed the application. The court observed that even statements recorded before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC do not constitute substantive evidence on their own. It clarified that a court may summon a person as an accused under Section 319 only on the basis of evidence recorded during the course of inquiry or trial.
The judge further noted that statements recorded under Sections 161 or 164 of the CrPC can be used for limited purposes such as corroboration at a later stage, but cannot independently justify arraigning a person as an accused.
The court also took note of the fact that charges in the case have not yet been framed and that a discharge application filed in the matter is still pending consideration.
