While setting aside convictions in the trap transaction, the Supreme Court has ruled that recovery from an intermediary and uncorroborated approver testimony cannot sustain a Prevention of Corruption Act prosecution where the chain of receipt is not established. The Court reaffirmed that proof of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification is the gravamen of the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and that mere recovery of tainted currency, divorced from proof of demand and acceptance, cannot sustain a conviction.
The Apex Court clarified that statutory presumption under Section 20 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, does not arise unless the foundational facts of demand and acceptance attributable to the accused are first established by the prosecution, and the presumption is not intended to relieve the prosecution of its primary burden. The Court also clarified that acceptance through an intermediary acting on behalf of the public servant can satisfy Section 7 read with Explanation 2, but the prosecution must establish by reliable evidence that the intermediary was acting under the authority, direction or for the benefit of the accused, and mere receipt of money by a third person cannot automatically impute criminal liability to a public servant.
The Court said that a demand and an initial handover to an intermediary are not enough; the chain of proof must be carried through, by cogent evidence, to the point where the money is shown to have actually reached or been intended for the accused, failing which the conviction cannot stand. Further, approver testimony under Section 306 CrPC must be corroborated in material particulars connecting the accused with the offence, and not merely with the transaction, particularly where the approver and the bribe giver corroborate each other on the very transaction in which both were active participants.
A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh and Justice Dipankar Datta noted several troubling features in the prosecution case. In the Nandakumar transaction, the appellant allegedly demanded Rs. 10,000 directly but, when the money was offered to him in his own chamber, inexplicably asked Nandakumar to hand it over to Anantha Narayanan, a ‘strange detour’ of the bribe money that the Court found difficult to comprehend. The tainted currency was recovered from the intermediary, not from the appellant, and no hand-wash test was conducted on the appellant to connect him with the recovery.
The Court further observed that the CBI closed the trap prematurely at the point of recovery from Anantha Narayanan instead of waiting to observe whether the money would actually reach the appellant’s residence, which would have furnished direct proof of receipt. The transfer of Nandakumar was admittedly within the authority of the Senior DPO and not the appellant, and both the Sr. DPO and the Assistant Personnel Officer deposed that nobody had approached them for the transfer.
In the Gopi Kumar transaction, the Court found that the only date on record fell squarely within the window when the appellant’s monthly diary recorded him as being away from Palakkad on duty with the Minister of State for Railways between July 29, 2005, and July 31, 2005, and the prosecution offered no explanation to reconcile this diary entry with its own case. No tainted currency was ever recovered in this transaction, no independent witness corroborated the meeting, and the Inspector who allegedly telephoned PW-11 was never examined. The Court also noted that the Gopi Kumar transaction was the solitary instance where the appellant was alleged to have been personally present at the moment of payment, departing from the pattern in every other transaction, which called for caution in the absence of independent corroboration.
The Court emphasised that Anantha Narayanan and Abdul Gafoor were both originally arrayed as accused and were tendered pardon under Section 306 CrPC, placing them squarely within the rule of prudence requiring independent corroboration in material particulars.
Briefly, the criminal appeals arising out of a single anti-corruption investigation conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation against Bharat Raj Meena, who was serving as the Divisional Security Commissioner (DSC), Railway Protection Force (RPF), Palakkad Division, Southern Railway, having assumed charge on 4 December 2004. The CBI registered FIR on Aug 04, 2005, on the complaint of P.P. Nandakumar, a Junior Clerk in the Personnel Branch at Palakkad, alleging that the appellant had evolved a system of demanding illegal gratification from RPF personnel seeking transfers, postings and other service benefits, routed through subordinate intermediaries, Constable Anantha Narayanan and Head Constable Abdul Gafoor.
The prosecution alleged twelve separate instances of illegal gratification collected between April and August 2005, ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 13,000, in connection with transfers and postings. A trap was laid on Aug 04, 2005, during which Anantha Narayanan was apprehended while accepting Rs. 5,000 from Nandakumar, but the appellant himself was not caught. Three final reports were filed on July 31, 2006, and the third report was split into four calendar cases under Section 219 CrPC. The two appeals before the Supreme Court arose from the Nandakumar trap transaction and the three transactions involving T.V. Rajan, C.K. Aravindan and N.P. Gopi Kumar, all routed through Abdul Gafoor. The Trial Court convicted the appellant in both cases, but the High Court of Kerala affirmed only the Nandakumar conviction and the Gopi Kumar conviction, acquitting him in the Aravindan transaction.
