A discharge in a corruption case requires establishing no prima facie case exists; discrepancies in assets vs. income must be reliably demonstrated.

ORDER :

(V SRISHANANDA, J.)

1. Heard Sri. Subhash Mallapur, learned Special Public Prosecutor for the petitioner-Lokayukta and Sri. Deepak V. Barad, learned counsel appearing for the respondent.

2. Lokayukta, Vijayapura has preferred the present revision petition against the order dated 31.08.2020 passed in Special (Lok) Case No.2/2017, whereby, the respondent has been discharged from the charge-sheet that has been filed under Section 13 (1)(e) read with Section 13 (2) of Prohibition of Corruption Act and under Section 465 , 468 , 471 read with Section 420 of IPC .

3. The facts in the nutshell for disposal of the present revision petition are as under:

The respondent is working was Sheristedar in taluka office, Vijayapura and later was promoted as Tahasildar. Based on a source of information, the Karnataka Lokayukta, Vijayapura, has started observing the income and expenditure of the respondent and check period commenced from 15.09.1990 to 22.11.2011. After keeping the track of the income and expenditure, an FIR came to be filed and investigation was conducted by the Lokayukta Police and after thorough investigation and collection of necessary documentary evidence on record, Lokayukta Police, Vijayapura filed charge-sheet against the accused for the aforesaid offences, contending that, there is excess income of 122% than the sources known to the prosecution.

4. Cognizance of the offence were taken by the learned Special Judge and later on accused was summoned.

5. The accused appeared before the Court and thereafter filed an application under Section 227 of Cr.P.C., seeking his discharge from the case.

6. The learned trial Judge after entertaining objections filed by the Lokayukta, heard the parties in detail and allowed the application filed by the accused inter-alia holding in paragraph Nos.25 to 28 as under:

25. Regarding the domestic expenditure, as per the report of the Deputy Director of the Lokayukta, an amount of Rs.13,79,161/- has been taken into consideration as an expenditure of the accused which is more than salary of the accused. Admittedly, the mother of the accused is a pensioner and she is getting pension of Rs.4,74,657/- which has not been taken into an income of the accused and thereby, she is capable of maintaining herself. Apart from this, the AGO is having a land and in this area, they used to get vegetables, grams, serials from their field only. It is stated in the material that the 1s t daughter of the accused has studied in Sandur Girls Residential School for the year 2009-10 and 2011-12 which is shown in page No.38 of Bhaga-7 and payment of Rs.1,49,000/- is taken under the head of expenditure and the 2nd daughter also student from 2009-10 to 2011 12 and the payment of Rs.1,49,000/- is taken under the head of expenditure under the head of expenditure at Sl.No.4.10. Therefore, the said amount has to be deducted from the domestic expenditure. Apart from this, the brother of the accused studied at Budha Rakitha Residential School, Dharwad from 1993-1995 and he student 10th stand from 1995-96 and he started earning by LIC business as an agent and also getting income from general rental basis, which is found in page No.331 and 332 and 337 and 338 of bhaga -2 and he is also having an exceeded income of taxable limit and paid income tax from the year 2007-2011 and thereby, their domestic expenditure can not be taken into consideration. It is also alleged in the application that they are pure vegetarian and an amount of Rs.75,621/- under the head, egg, fish and meat can not be taken into consideration and only 1/3rd of the net salary of the accused can be taken into consideration as an domestic expenses of the accused in view of the laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India reported in AIR 1964 SC 464 page 471. Therefore, an