The central legal point established in the judgment is the necessity of proving demand and establishing the essential ingredients of the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

JUDGMENT

1. Rule. Rule returnable forthwith.

2. The petitioner is seeking quashing of the order dtd. 23/2/2021 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Palghar whereby discharge application of the petitioner was rejected.

3. In nutshell, the prosecution case is as under :

(a) According to complainant, Appeal Nos. 32 of 2016, 33 of 2016, 34 of 2016 and 35 of 2016 regarding mutation entries of complainant's father's properties were pending before the petitioner, who was at the relevant time was Sub- Divisional Officer, Palghar. Prosecution alleges that the petitioner and other accused, namely, Satish Maniwade, Nayab Tahsildar of Sub Divisional Office, Palghar demanded Rs.50.00 lakhs to pass the orders in favour of the complainant. Since complainant was averse to pay the bribe, he approached the office of Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on 26 th August, 2016 and lodged the complaint.

(b) Prosecution next contends that the office of ACB with the help of complainant set up first trap on 29 th August, 2016. However, since verification of the demand could not be done, trap was postponed. Thereafter, again on 20/9/2016, the second trap was arranged when despite the complainant met petitioner and as there was no demand of any bribe amount, again there was no verification of the demand from the office of petitioner. Lastly, third trap on 24 th November, 2016 was laid. It is alleged that on that day, the complainant met petitioner in his cabin and asked for exchange of 22 -25 new notes saying

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(c) It is further alleged that as per above discussion, the complainant prepared dummy notes of Rs.1000.00 of which 50 bundles were made ready. The complainant had Rs.3.00 lakhs in old notes i.e. denomination of Rs.1000.00. On the said notes anthracene powder was applied and were kept in one blue coloured cloth bag.

(d) It then appears that another trap was set up by putting the voice recorder on the complainant and he was sent along with other Panchas with the bag of moneys. In the passage of office of the petitioner, accused No.3, namely, Jayesh Patil, driver of the petitioner met complainant and received Rs.50.00 lakhs and kept the money in record room. Thereafter, as per trap, the complainant went to the office of accused No.2 Satish Maniwade and informed him that the money has been given to accused No. 3. Afterwards, the complainant gave signal to the Panchas, who were standing outside the office and accused No.3 was caught red handed. The money was recovered from accused No.3, who was sitting in the office of petitioner. Accordingly the First Information Report came to be filed.

4. Mr. Dewani, learned Counsel for the petitioner, submits that there is no direct evidence or material on record to show that at any point of time the petitioner had any discussion with complainant about the matter, leave apart making any demand. Even there is no material to show that the petitioner in any manner had instructed any of the two accused to take any bribe on his behalf for doing any favour to the complainant. Rather, the conversation dtd. 20/9/2016 relied upon by the prosecution would show that the petitioner was totally unaware of the matter and what was allegedly transpiring between the complainant and other accused persons.

5. According to learned Counsel, the ingredients of Ss. 7, 8, 12, 13 (1) (d) read with 13 (2) of The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (fort short, "the said Act") are totally missing. Since there was no demand of illegal gratification by the petitioner from complainant, the alleged offences therefore must fail.

6. Learned counsel also invited my attention to various transcriptions of conversations recorded during all the three traps and would forcefully submit that the learned Sessions Court failed to take into consideration the proper import of those transcriptions. According to learned Counsel, the prosecution is only relying on conversation between the petitioner and complainant which does not in any manner conn