Mere documentation errors do not amount to criminal culpability under corruption laws; intent and conspiracy must be proven for prosecution.

ORDER :

A. BADHARUDEEN, J.

The 2nd accused in C.C. No.4 of 2021 on the files of the Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Thiruvananthapuram arising out of V.C. No. 6 of 2017/SRT of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (for short, ‘VACB' hereafter) has filed this Criminal Miscellaneous Case under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, ‘CrPC’ hereafter) and the prayer herein is to quash the entire proceedings as against him in the above case.

2. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner/2nd accused and the learned Special Public Prosecutor appearing for VACB in detail. Gone through the documents placed by the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as the statements of witnesses and documents placed by the learned Special Public Prosecutor.

3. I shall refer the parties in this petition as ‘prosecution’ and ‘accused’ hereafter.

4. In this matter the prosecution alleges commission of offences punishable under Section s 120B, 468 and 479 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, IPC’ hereafter) as well as under Section 13 (1)(d) r/w 13(2) of the the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 (for short, ‘the PC Act 1988’ hereafter) by the accused persons.

5. The prosecution allegation is that accused No.2 the Section clerk of A3 Section Pareeksha Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram and accused No.3 one Mr.Sivankutty senior clerk H-6 Section Pareeksha Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram hatched conspiracy along with accused No.1 Sri.Rajan, who applied for KGTE Shorthand (lower) examination 2015 and thereby manipulating the records in a format supplied by the 2nd accused without a column to show the actual mark regarding paper –I, scrutinised the same through one Smt.Anitha the Confidential Assistant Pareeksh Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram without any order from the Secretary of Pareeksha Bhavan or from the Superintendent of A Section. In consequence thereof, the actual mark obtained in the first Paper by the 1st accused Rajan is shown as 27 1⁄2 instead of ‘zero’ marks he actually obtained. Because of this, when Rajan applied for the details of the marks under the Right to Information Act, Annexure–D communication was issued showing that Rajan secured 27 1⁄2 marks out of 50 in Paper-I and Paper-II even though he actually secured ‘zero’ mark in Paper-I. The further allegation is that thereafter the 3rd accused issued certificate of pass and by using the same, Rajan, who was working as Motor Cyclist orderly in the Government Secretariat got promotion to the post of Confidential Assistant Grade-II and consequential salary thereof. On getting complaint in this regard when the vigilance investigated the matter, it was found that actually Rajan did not pass Paper-I and he obtained only ‘zero’ mark for Paper-I.

6. While submitting that the petitioner is innocent, it is pointed out by the the learned counsel for the petitioner that mere omission to include a column in Annexure–C showing actual mark obtained in Paper–I, placed before the scrutiny officer, the prosecution alleges that the petitioner committed serious offences on the premise that he had hatched conspiracy with the 1st and 3rd accused so as to get undue pecuniary advantage to the 1st accused by way of illegal promotion. It is pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner further that even though there is omission to provide a column showing the actual mark of Paper-I, the remarks column pertaining to the 1st accused and all other nine persons as per Annexure -C, no change was recorded and that would show that the earlier mark obtained by Rajan was the mark confirmed after scrutiny (revaluation) also. According