The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a notice to Justice (retd) Nirmal Yadav and three others on a CBI appeal challenging their acquittal in the 2008 ‘cash at judge’s doorstep’ case. A division bench of Justices Manjari Nehru Kaul and HS Grewal, on Monday, listed the matter for December 15.The case dates back to August 2008, when a bag containing Rs 15 lakh was delivered to the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, then a judge of the high court, by the clerk of former Haryana Additional Advocate General Sanjeev Bansal. The clerk reported the delivery to the police, leading to an FIR and subsequent transfer of the case to the CBI. Investigators claimed that the money was intended for Justice Yadav, who too was a judge of the high court, as illegal gratification for a favourable order in a property dispute, but due to the similarity in names, it was mistakenly delivered to Justice Kaur. The CBI filed its chargesheet in 2011, citing that it it had examined 78 witnesses.A special CBI Court in Chandigarh, however, acquitted all the accused on March 29 this year. In a strongly worded judgment, the court held that the CBI had “fabricated a highly unworthy of trust evidence” and criticised its reliance on Raj Kumar Jain, a litigant who lost a case before Justice Yadav. The court said his testimony was full of “improvements, assumptions and falsehood” and noted that CBI should have stuck to its initial closure report.Challenging the acquittal of Justice Yadav, along with three others, namely, Ravinder Singh, Rajeev Gupta and Nirmal Singh, CBI special public prosecutor Akashdeep Singh submitted that the trial court erred in discarding credible evidence despite a strong chain of circumstantial and direct links.The counsel contended that Rs 15 lakh was sent by an accused Ravinder Singh through Sanjiv Bansal to Justice Yadav for judicial favour in RSA-550-2007. The money was mistakenly delivered to Justice Kaur’s residence by a munshi, Parkash Ram. Next day, on August 14, 2008, one Rajiv Gupta allegedly delivered the amount to Justice Yadav, who on that day purchased land in Solan. He alleged that Rajiv Gupta and Sanjiv Bansal later tried to cover up the transaction by fabricating a property-deal story.The CBI claimed that the case was backed by phone call records, confessional statements under Section 164 CrPC, and other circumstantial evidence, including the recovery of Rs 15 lakh in cash, additional illegal gratification of Rs 2.5 lakh, and benefits like air tickets. A total of 78 witnesses were examined, though some turned hostile, and proceedings against Bansal abated after his death.The CBI counsel argued that the trial court had wrongly ignored this evidence and relied on speculative reasoning, calling its judgment “perverse” and contrary to Supreme Court rulings on circumstantial evidence. He urged the High Court to overturn the acquittal.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Punjab and Haryana High Court