Date of judgement:
22 December 2021
Bench:
Justice Vineet Saran
Justice Aniruddha Bose
Parties:
Appellant – Suman Chandra
Respondent – Central Bureau of Investigation
Subject
An order of acquittal by the Trial Court can only be reversed by the High Court if it is not only wrong, but also unreasonable and biased to an extent. In this judgement, the Supreme Court talked about the aforementionedissue.
Legal Provisions:
- Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 – If a public servant agrees to accept or accepts extra gratification other than legal remuneration in return of doing any official act or rendering any service with any Government authority, he/she shall be liable to imprisonment of not less than 3 years which may extend to 7 years along with fine.
- Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 – If any public servant is found guilty of criminal misconduct, he/she shall be imprisoned for 4 years which can be extended up to 10 years, along with fine.
- Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 – A public servant is said to have conducted criminal misconduct when: (i) by corrupt means acquires for himself or others monetary gains; (ii) by abusing his position acquires for himself or others monetary gains; (iii) when in position, he/she helps others in gaining monetary gains without public interest.
Overview
- The appellant filed a criminal appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Calcutta High Court, that reversed an acquittal order by a Trial Court.
- The appellant was a public servant who had been charged with Sections 7, 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
- The complainant filed a complaint against the appellant before the SP, CBI, Anti-Corruption Branch, Kolkata in 2003.
- It was alleged that the appellant had demanded bribe for not implicating the complainant in a false case of running a group engaged in selling railway reservation tickets with the help of middle-men.
- In the pursuit of finding the truth, CBI laid out a trap, where, in the presence of independent witnesses, the SP gave demonstration regarding the reaction of Phenolphthalein powder with Sodium Carbonate on currency notes.
- These same currency notes were then handed over by the complainant to the appellant and thus, he was caught red-handed.
- The Trial Court considered that: (i) No other person who was present at the time of the pre-trap memo was examined except one; (ii) The officers of CBI who wrote the 2 seizure lists were also not examined; (iii) The person who prepared the post-trap memo was also exempted from examination.
- Based on these observations, the Trial Court had acquitted the appellant of all charges.
- When this matter was appealed in the Calcutta High Court, the hon’ble bench said that from time immemorial, the courts of India have believed in the quality of witnesses and not the quantity.
- The bench also said that if the public prosecutor thought that the other witnesses would not support the prosecution, he was free not to bring them in.
- The appellant was convictedwith an imprisonment of 1 year along with a Rs. 5,000fine.
- The High Court thus, reversed the Trial Court’s judgement, on the basis that the evidences were not properly scrutinised and the judgement was based on pure conjecture.
Issues
- Whether it was right for the High Court to reverse the order of the Trial Court?
Judgement Analysis
- The Supreme Court observed that the judgement of the Trial Court was neither unreasonable nor perverse and thus the High Court should not have reversed it.
- The Apex Court thus set aside the judgement of the High Court and restored the judgement of the Trial Court.
- The reinstatement in service was granted to the appellant though he could not claim back wages.
- The appeal was thus allowed by the Supreme Court.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that from this order, the Supreme Court made it clear that any order of a Trial Court regarding acquittal of judgements can only be reversed by the High Court if it is not only erroneous but also unreliable & perverse. Through this judgement, it was also proved that in India, an accused will only be convicted when it is proved beyond doubts that the crime is committed by him/her. “Innocent until proven guilty” is the motto of Indian judiciary and it is being upheld by the Courts.
