2000 Supreme(SC) 1765

2000(7) Supreme 522
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(From Bombay High Court)
K.T. Thomas & R.P. Sethi, JJ.
Madhukar Bhaskarrao Joshi -Appellant
versus
State of Maharashtra -Respondent
Criminal Appeal No. 960 of 2000
(Arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 2281 of 2000)
Decided on 9-11-2000
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellant : R. Sundaravardan, Sr. Advocate, Shivaji M. Jadhav and Sunil Kr. Verma, Advocates.
For the Respondent : H.W. Dhabe, Sr. Advocate, S.S. Shinde and S.V. Deshpande, Advocates.

Headnote:(i) Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947-Section 4(1)-Presumption as to corruption-Proof of payment or receipt of gratification sufficient to raise legal presumption that gratification was paid or accepted as a motive or reward-No further duty to prove beyond fact that demanded money had been paid.

       Once the prosecution established that gratification in any form - cash or kind - had been paid or accepted by a public servant the court is under a legal compulsion to presume that the said gratification was paid or accepted as a motive or reward to do (or forbear from doing) any official act. The only exception to the said rule is, when the gratification is so trivial that no inference of corruption could in fairness be drawn on a particular fact situation the court has no such legal compulsion to presume. Such a presumption was introduced in the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 (Act of 1947, or short) through a later amendment. The said legal presumption was carried forward into the successor enactment of 1988. (Para 2)

       The premise to be established on the facts for drawing the presumption is that there was payment or acceptance of gratification. Once the said premise is established the inference to be drawn is that the said gratification was accepted "as motive or reward" for doing or forbearing to do any official act. So the word gratification need not be stretched to mean reward because reward is the outcome of the presumption which the court has to draw on the factual premise that there was payment of gratification. This will again be fortified by looking at the collocation of two expressions adjacent to each other like "gratification or any valuable thing." If acceptance of any valuable thing can help to draw the presumption that it was accepted as motive or reward for doing or forbearing to do an official act, the word gratification must be treated in the context to mean any payment for giving satisfaction to the public servant who received it. (Para 12)

       Prosecution has no further duty to prove beyond the fact that PW-1 had paid the demanded money to the appellant for enabling it to lay the hand on the legal presumption employed in the Prevention of Corruption Act. (Para 14)

       In the present case, a public servant admitted that a certain amount was paid to him by a private party, but he sought to explain that it was an amount otherwise payable to him and hence it was no gratification at all. The trial Court and the High Court found that the public servant failed to prove that the amount received by him was legally due to him otherwise. The trial Court convicted him under Section 5(2) of the Act of 1947, and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for one year and a fine of Rs. 5000/-. The Supreme Court held that the very undisputed fact that the amount had reached the hands of the appellant itself is sufficient corroboration for the testimony of PW-1 that the amount was paid to the appellant. The defence did not even attempt to prove that the amount received by the appellant was not accepted as a reward or motive for the official act done by him, except the ipse dixit of the appellant, that too made at the fag end of the trial when he put in a written statement of his defence. Hence no exception can be taken to the conviction passed by the trial Court which was concurred by the High Court in respect of the offence under Section 5(2) of the Act of 1947. (Paras 3, 9 and 14)

       (ii) Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947-Section 5(2)-Punishment for accepting bribe-Trial Court convicting with one year rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs. 5000-High Court reducing imprisonment of just one day-Appeal thereagainst by convict-Show cause notice by Supreme Court for enhancement of sentence-High Court not correct in reducing imprisonment to vanishing point-No special reason for awarding sentence less than minimum prescribed-Increasing fine after reducing imprisonment to a nominal period would defeat purpose of Act-Pendency of case for long time cannot be special reason to award lesser period imprisonment-Sentence passed by trial Court restored.

       In the corresponding provision of the Act of 1988 [Section 13(2) of that Act] there is no such proviso as in Section 5(2) of the earlier Act and no power whatsoever is given to the court to impose a sentence less than the minimum, even if there are special reasons for doing so. The Parliament fixed the minimum sentence of imprisonment of one year even under the Act of 1947 by making an amendment to it in 1958 for which the legislative language is apparently peremptory i.e. "shall not be less than one year". The proviso is in the form of a rare exception by giving power to the court for reducing the imprisonment period below one year only when there are "special reasons" and the law required that those special reasons must be recorded in writing by the court. (Para 17)

       When corruption was sought to be eliminated from the polity all possible stringent measures are to be adopted within the bounds of law. One such measure is to provide condign punishment. Parliament measured the parameters for such condign punishment and in that process wanted tofix a minimum sentence of imprisonment for giving deterrent impact on other public servants who are prone to corrupt deals. That was precisely the reason why the sentence was fixed as 7 years and directed that even if the said period of imprisonment need not be given the sentence shall not be less than the imprisonment for one year. Such a legislative insistence is reflection of Parliament s resolve to meet corruption cases with very strong hand and to give signals of deterrence as the most pivotal feature of sentencing of corrupt public servants. All public servants were warned through such a legislative measure that corrupt public servants have to face very serious consequences. If on the other hand any public servant is given the impression that if he succeeds in protracting the proceedings that would help him to have the advantage of getting a very light sentence even if the case ends in conviction, we are afraid its fallout would afford incentive to public servants who are susceptible to corruption to indulge in such nefarious practices with immunity. Increasing the fine after reducing the imprisonment to a nominal period can also defeat the purpose as the corrupt public servant could easily raise the fine amount through the same means. (Para 18)

       Mere fact that the case was pending for a long time could not be considered as a special reason for awarding imprisonment less than prescribed minimum period of one year. That is a general feature in almost all convictions under the PC Act and it is not a speciality of this particular case. It is the defect of the system that longevity of the cases tried under the PC Act is too lengthy. If that is to be regarded as sufficient for reducing the minimum sentence mandated by the Parliament the legislative exercise would stand defeated. There was absolutely no special reason in this case as for the appellant to entitle to get a sentence less than the minimum prescribed by law. Accordingly, we restore the sentence passed by the trial Court on the appellant for the offence under Section 5(2) of the Act of 1947. (Paras 19 & 21)