At the discharge stage under Section 239 Cr.P.C., the court must evaluate the prosecution's evidence on its face value, allowing charges to be framed if a prima facie case exists, without conducting a mini-trial.

COMMON ORDER

All these criminal revisions have been filed by the State against the order of the learned Special Judge / Chief Judicial Magistrate, Cuddalore, whereby, all the respondents were discharged from the case against them in Spl.C.Nos.03 of 2012. Since all the criminal revisions arise out of the common order passed by the learned Special Judge, they are disposed of by this common order.

2 Based on the information received by the authorities, a case was registered in Cr.No.08 of 2011 against Mr.M.R.K.Panneerselvam, for the offence under Section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 , (in short 'the PC Act'). After completing investigation, charge sheet was laid against Mr.M.R.K.Panneerselvam, his wife and his son arraying them as A1 to A3 and the same was taken on file in Spl.C.No.3 of 2012 alleging that Mr.M.R.K.Panneerselvam, who is A1, while serving as the Member of Legislative Assembly during the period between 15.04.2006 and 21.03.2011, had acquired and had been in possession of pecuniary resources and properties in his name and in the name of his family members far beyond his known source of income and A2 and A3 who are wife and son of A1, abetted the first accused to commit the said offence.

3 Pending the above case, the respondents herein have filed separate petitions in Crl.M.P.Nos.146 to 148 of 2013 under Section 239 Cr.P.C . seeking discharge. The learned Special Judge, Cuddalore, after hearing the respective counsel, by a common order dated 03.02.2016 allowed all the petitions and discharged the respondents/A1 to A3.

4 Aggrieved over the order of the learned Special Judge, discharging all the accused, the State has preferred these criminal revisions before this Court.

5 Learned Additional Advocate General assisted by the learned Government Advocate (Crl.Side) would submit that Mr.M.R.K.Panneerselvam-A1, was a Minister for Backward Classes Welfare, Government of Tamilnadu, during the period from 13.05.1996 to 14.05.2001 and subsequently he was also holding a post of Member of Legislative Assembly during the period from 2006 to 2011. During the period between 15.04.2006 to 21.03.2011 he had been in possession of pecuniary resource and properties in his name and in the name of his family members far beyond his known source of income. During the relevant point of time, A1 was a public servant within the meaning of Section 2(c) of the PC Act. The available materials viz. the statements recorded from the witnesses and documents collected during investigation would go to show that there are legal and consistent evidence to prove that the properties and pecuniary resources held by the accused had been acquired by illegitimate source.

5.1 The trial Court wrongly calculated the income of A1 on the higher side from the agricultural land and other business. The first accused, on behalf of other accused, while offering his explanation to the final opportunity notice, did not produce any tangible satisfactory material to indicate that A2 and A3 were having sufficient independent income to acquire the massive amount of assets standing in their names. Further it is for the accused to establish that the purchase of assets is lawful and from and out of known sources, but in the present case there is no evidence to show that A2 had acquired the property standing in her name from the source of her parent either before or after marriage and during the entire period of her acquisition of property A1 alone was the earning member of the family.

5.2 The learned trial Judge erroneously made a finding that the income tax returns filed by the accused are legal documents and the income of all the accused had been assessed by filing separate income tax return and per which, there is no disproportionate assets as alleged by the prosecution. Further, the learned trial Judge erroneously arrived at a conclusion that the clubbing of properties can be possible only in the way as shown in Sections 60 and 64 of the Income Tax