JUDGMENT

Sharma J (delivering oral judgment):

This is an appeal against the conviction and sentence of the appellant on a charge under s. 4(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1961. The learned president found the appellant guilty of the charge, convicted him and sentenced him to one year's imprisonment. A number of grounds of appeal have been put forward, the most important of them being that the complainant PW12 was an accomplice and that even if he was not an accomplice he at any rate was a participant in the crime and therefore there should be sufficient corroboration of his evidence. I am unable to say how PW12 can, by any stretch of imagination, be called an accomplice. At the most he may be called a trap witness. The whole object of the Prevention of Corruption Act would be nullified if any public-spirited person decided to go to the Anti-Corruption Agency to tell them that a public officer had demanded a bribe from him and if as a result of his information to the Anti-Corruption Agency a trap was set against the officer in question by asking the member of the public to go and pay the bribe demanded to the said officer. Corroboration of the testimony of a trap witness is no doubt desirable and it is not safe to convict the accused in the absence of that corroboration. I entirely accept that proposition. In this case, however, the evidence was so clearly against the accused that no Court using the standards of any reasonable man could possibly have come to any other inference except the clear guilt of the accused. The evidence discloses a long process of preparation for the commission of the offence. It was in fact the appellant who had hatched a plan to get the money out of PW12. Unfortunately for him that plan turned out to be a trap into which he himself fell. There were demands on the part of the appellant. There was refusal on his part to do anything for PW12 unless money was paid to him.

I have very carefully gone through and scrutinised the appeal record and all the evidence, both the prosecution and the defence, several times in order to ensure that no injustice may be done to the appellant. I have tried to view the evidence in as favourable a manner to the appellant as I reasonably could, but I find no reason to interfere with the finding of guilt arrived at by the learned president.

It has been urged that the grounds of decision supplied by the learned president are faulty in more ways than one, that he has not given his clear-cut findings on facts and that he has not said what witnesses he believed and what witnesses he did not believe. Having gone through the record very carefully, I think it is that type of a case where I can myself very safely and without any risk of injustice come to my own findings. On going through the evidence I do find that money was demanded by the appellant from PW12, that PW12 paid it to him and he accepted it. These findings are irresistible and I for a moment cannot see how any Court could on the evidence as revealed and produced in this case come to any findings other than those. The money was provided in an envelope to PW12 by the Anti-Corruption Agency. PW12 handed this envelope to the appellant. The appellant, according to PW12, looked at the money and flipped the currency notes although he did not count the money. The act of handing over of the currency notes in the envelope was seen by PW14 and PW15 (PW14 and PW15 testified that they saw PW12 handing over that envelope to the appellant). I do not know what is corroboration if that is not corroboration. The money was not only handed over to the appellant but also found with the appellant before he was finally arrested. It has been suggested that money was in fact planted on the appellant and that PW12 was a member of the public who had a grudge against the appellant. I find no merit or strength in that argument taking into consideration the various applications PW12 had already made to the Land Office and the fact that i