A cleaner, who worked in the office of a civil surgeon in Punjab, was on Thursday acquitted by the Supreme Court of the charges of allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 300 two decades ago for preparing a death certificate.
The top court acquitted Jagtar Singh (65), who was convicted by the trial court in 2005 for offences under Prevention of Corruption Act and awarded one year imprisonment.
On March 2, 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld his conviction and sentence. The appeal remained pending before the top court for 13 years.
A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Rajesh Bindal, acquitted Singh, who was 45 years old when he was booked for the offence of accepting bribe and set aside the orders of the high court and the trial court.
"The trial court had specifically held that there is no evidence produced on record to prove the demand of illegal gratification. It is not the case in which the demand was reiterated when the money was allegedly paid to him…The High Court has passed its judgment on the assumption that the money having been recovered from the appellant, there was demand of illegal gratification. This is not a case where there was circumstantial evidence to prove the demand," the bench said.
Advocate Gagan Gupta, who appeared for Singh, said he was granted bail in 2008 but in total he had served 38 days in jail.
"He retired from the government job in 2016, with a stigma," he said.
The bench held that Singh's judgement cannot be sustained in view of the law laid down by the 2022 constitution bench verdict in case of Neeraj Dutta versus Government of NCT Delhi, where it was held that the demand and recovery both must be proved to sustain conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The bench noted that in the case, complainant Jit Singh as well as Chamkur Singh, ex-village panchayat member, who was made shadow prosecution had turned hostile in the trial court.
Shadow witness is one who accompanies the complainant in plain clothes to the public servant seeking bribe, to witness the transaction of bribery and to give a pre-determined signal to the raiding party.
Counsel for the Punjab government had submitted that the phenolphthalein coated currency notes with same serial numbers were recovered from Singh in the presence of independent witnesses.
The counsel had said during arguments that inference can be drawn that there was demand and that is why Singh accepted the illegal gratification, hence, his conviction deserves to be upheld.
Gupta on other hand had contended, at the most, it can be said that recovery has been proved though that is also seriously doubtful and there is no evidence of demand of illegal gratification.
According to the complaint, it was alleged that for getting the death certificate of Maghar Singh, who expired on March 6, 2003, Ranjit Singh, his son, requested his cousin Jit Singh to collect the same.
On October 17, 2003, Jit Singh met Jagtar Singh in connection with supply of death certificate, but the latter demanded Rs 500, as illegal gratification.
The complaint said that final settlement was arrived at for payment of Rs 300 by Jit Singh. Since Jit Singh was reluctant to pay the illegal gratification, he contacted Chamkaur Singh and on his suggestion went to the office of DSP, Vigilance at Faridkot and got his statement recorded, on the basis of which FIR was registered.
The complainant handed over three currency notes of Rs 100 each to the DSP, Vigilance, who after coating the same with phenolphthalein powder recorded their numbers in the memo and handed over the same again to Jit Singh.
Chamkaur Singh was made the shadow witness. Police claimed that Jagtar Singh was alleged that the appellant was arrested red-handed while accepting the illegal gratification.
During trial, both Jit and Chamkaur Singh did not support the prosecution version and were declared hostile.
Usha Kumari, who worked as a computer operator in the office of the civil surgeon, deposed that Jagtar Singh was working in the office as a cleaner.
She had deposed that in emergency Jagtar Singh was also used to be deputed for discharging other duties also including preparing of death certificates.
Kumari had told the court that the death certificate in question was prepared on October 17, 2003 and Jagtar Singh was deputed to prepare the death certificates on October 20, 2003.
She had said the death certificate had been prepared prior to the date on which Jagtar Singh was assigned the duty to prepare the death certificate.
-With PTI Input
