Supreme Court flags irrelevant evidence in corruption cases; acquits public servant in 1993 case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised the use of voluminous and irrelevant evidence in corruption cases while acquitting a former public servant in a case dating back to 1993 [Khanindra Kr Dutta v. CBI].

A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran noted that the prosecution had examined 62 witnesses, while the High Court had referred to the evidence of only 9 of them.

The Court said that lengthy evidence in corruption cases could often intimidate courts, particularly when much of the material was not relevant.

“In corruption cases voluminous evidence is led, which is often intimidating to the Court, especially since many aspects attempted to be led in evidence are way off the mark, in providing a substantiation of the allegation, or to bring home the guilt of the accused-public servant...Prosecution in corruption cases have a history of long pendency; especially because of the voluminous evidence led, which often is unnecessary and as we noticed, mostly irrelevant," it said.

The Court was hearing an appeal by one Khanindra Dutta, a Veterinary Assistant Surgeon and store-in-charge in Assam’s Veterinary Department, who had been convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with allegations that false bills were raised for medicines which were never supplied. The case arose from a complaint received by the Veterinary Department of Assam regarding an alleged loss of ₹5,97,200.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge-sheeted 7 persons in the case. 4 were convicted by the trial court while 3 were acquitted. The trial court convicted Dutta and the storekeeper. They challenged their convictions before the High Court.

The High Court acquitted the accountant who had passed the bills but upheld Dutta's conviction, along with that of the storekeeper, under Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. However, it also recorded that there was no evidence to show that either of them had obtained any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage from the alleged offence.

Dutta then approached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court noted that Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act required the prosecution to establish that the public servant had obtained a valuable thing or pecuniary advantage for himself or another person in the circumstances specified by the provision.

Since the High Court had itself found that there was no evidence of any such pecuniary advantage, the Supreme Court held that Dutta's conviction under the provision could not be sustained.

The Court further noted that the alleged offence was from 1993. It said that if no pecuniary advantage had been obtained, the Department could have initiated disciplinary proceedings and quantified the loss. That had not been done.

Turning to the evidence led in the case, the Court noted that the prosecution had examined 62 witnesses, while the High Court had referred to only 9. 8 of those witnesses were in-charge of veterinary dispensaries in different parts of Assam at the relevant time. Their evidence was intended to establish that the medicines mentioned in the challans and bills had not been supplied. The ninth witness was the actual owner of the firm shown as the supplier. He denied receiving any money and also denied supplying the medicines.

The Court found that the prosecution had not investigated the money trail to establish what happened to the money after it was disbursed by the department.

Finding no reason to uphold Dutta's conviction under Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Court acquitted him.

Dutta was represented by Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave along with Advocates Jemtiben Ao, Rohit Kumar-I, Shaileshwar Yadav, Shailendra Singh, Divyanshi Pundhir, Shevalik Singh, Shruti Tiwarie, Ritik Kumar and Sandeep Goyal.

The CBI was represented by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati and Advocate Shreekant Neelappa Terdal.

[Read Judgment]