At the stage of considering a discharge petition, a court should not conduct a mini-trial. The court must accept the prosecution's material at face value to determine if the ingredients of the alleged offence are disclosed, avoiding any deep evidentiary analysis or evaluation of potential for conviction.

JUDGMENT :

RAJESH SHANKAR, J.

1. The present Criminal Misce llaneous Petition has been filed for quashing the order dated 05.01.2023 passed by the Special Judge, Anti-Corruption Bureau, Ranchi in Misc. Criminal Application No. 2190 of 2022, arising out of Ranchi A.C.B. P.S. Case No. 05 of 2020, corresponding to Vigilance Case No. 06 of 2020, whereby the discharge petition filed by the petitioner under Section 227 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (now Section 250 of the Baratiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023) has been dismissed.

2. The brief facts of the case as emerge from the record are that one Hemant Kumar (Proprietor of M/s Laxmi Enterprises) made a complaint before Anti-Corruption Bureau, Ranchi stating that his firm was awarded a contract by the Chief Engineer, Jharkhand State Rural Roads Development Authority (JSRRDA), HEC, Dhurwa under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) being PKG No. JH-2106, Phase No. VI, vide Agreement No. 05 PMGSY 2018-19 for an amount of Rs.3,78,24,591/-. The work was completed on 14.07.2019 and thereafter the petitioner, being the Executive Engineer, Rural Works Division, Simdega, released Rs.3,13,00,000/- in favour of the complainant. However, an amount of approx. Rs.8,00,000/-, which was to be refunded after completion of the allotted work, was not paid to the complainant and the said amount was kept pending even after granting approval by the concerned Junior Engineer and Assistant Engineer. In the meantime, the petitioner demanded gratification of 1% of the total agreement value, which figured about Rs.4,00,000/-. The petitioner threatened that he would not release the rest amount of agreement value if the demanded amount was not paid. It was agreed after negotiation that the complainant would pay Rs.1,00,000/- as first installment for release of the rest amount with respect to the two pending bills pertaining to the completed work of road construction.

3. The allegation of the complainant was secretly verified by the Police Inspector, ACB, Ranchi, and the same was found correct. Thereafter, an F.I.R being ACB P.S. Case No. 05 of 2020 was registered under Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act, 1988”) as amended vide the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018. A raiding team was constituted and G.C. Notes memorandum was prepared in the presence of officials of the team. During the course of trap on 15.07.2020, Phenolphthalein smeared gratification amount of Rs.1,00,000/- was recovered from the right hand of the petitioner and thereafter he was arrested.

4. Subsequent to submission of charge sheet and taking cognizance of the offence, the petitioner filed discharge petition under Section 227 of the Cr.P.C, however, the learned trial court dismissed the said petition vide order dated 05.01.2023 observing that prima facie sufficient materials were available on the record for framing charges against the petitioner under Section 7(a) of the Act, 1988 as amended by the Amendment Act, 2018.

5. The charge under Section 7(a) of the Act, 1988 as amended vide the Amendment Act, 2018 has also been farmed against the petitioner vide memo of charge dated 30.03.2023.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is completely innocent and has been falsely implicated in this case by the complainant for not acceding his unjustified demand of releasing the total amount of performance guarantee without any prior verific