Bangalore: The principal sessions judge and special judge, Bangalore rural district has ruled that mere possession of excess cash is not enough to make a corruption case. He made this observation while discharging a case against a second division assistant of the office of sub-registrar, Hoskote in Bangalore rural district on September 3.
It has come as a relief to government officials, all of whom are chary about carrying cash at all, fearing Lokayukta surprise raids.
The Lokayukta police wing officials raided the sub-registrar’s office on August 8, 2011. During the raid, C Papanna was found possessing Rs 22,340. On that day, a sum of Rs 39,065 was received from the public towards registration charges as evidenced by receipts Nos 3379 to 3428. When asked to produce cash, he could produce only a sum of Rs 22,340 and had no explanation for the remaining amount that he should have had.
The second accused in the case, an SDA, J Vishwanath, was found with Rs 23,400. He had explained that it was the amount he had received from encumbrance certificates. He produced receipts for Rs 11,950, and claimed the rest was his personal cash.
Cash was recovered from several others – a total of nine persons from senior officials till the office assistant. Strangely, though the raids were in the same office on same date, only Vishwanath was chargesheeted. Vishwanath moved court, seeking discharging of his petition in April 2013. The court, which heard the case, in its judgment said that mere recovery of money was not sufficient to make a case of corruption.
The court observed, “It was held by the High Court that mere possession of some money in the hands of document writers would not suggest or substantiate the offence of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification by the sub-registrar and the officials of his office,”. “It is also held that in all trap cases it would be just and necessary to have a complaint and then submit FIR to the jurisdictional court and only thereafter raid should be done. It is further held that if investigation by surprise raid in trap cases is permitted, it would demoralize the public administration and SHOs of Lokayukta police stations would tend to misuse the powers of investigation. Lastly, it is held that conduct of investigation by surprise raid in such cases in absence of FIR would be untenable.”
It is learnt however, that Lokayukta, will seek legal opinion on challenging the order, as it has wide ramifications for its anti corruption operations.
