BRIBE PAID THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY: WHAT MUST THE PROSECUTION PROVE AGAINST THE ACCUSED? SUPREME COURT EXPLAINS

Bharat Raj Meena v. Central Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Appeal Nos. 4732 and 4733 of 2024

In corruption prosecutions where a public servant is alleged to have collected bribes through a subordinate or intermediary rather than directly, courts have often grappled with how far the chain of proof must be carried before guilt can be attributed to the Accused himself. In a judgment delivered on 16 September 2026, the Supreme Court, in Bharat Raj Meena v. Central Bureau of Investigation, acquitted a former Railway Protection Force officer of corruption charges spanning two separate prosecutions, holding that handing money to an intermediary who invokes the Accused’s name is not, by itself, sufficient to prove that the Accused demanded or accepted the gratification.

 

Background of the Case

The Appellant, Bharat Raj Meena, served as Divisional Security Commissioner, Railway Protection Force, Palakkad Division, between December 2004 and August 2005. The CBI’s investigation, arising from a single FIR, alleged that he ran a system in which force personnel seeking transfers or postings were required to pay illegal gratification, collected on his behalf through two subordinate intermediaries, Constable Anantha Narayanan and Head Constable Abdul Gafoor. Both intermediaries were initially arraigned as co-accused but were later granted pardon under Section 306 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and examined as approver witnesses.

Of several prosecutions that followed, two reached the Supreme Court. The first arose from a CBI trap laid on a complaint by P.P. Nandakumar, in which Anantha Narayanan, not the Appellant, was caught accepting marked currency. The Trial Court and the Kerala High Court convicted the Appellant under Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, on the theory that the money was meant for him. The second arose from three separate transactions in which Abdul Gafoor allegedly collected money on the Appellant’s behalf; the Appellant was ultimately convicted only in relation to the complainant N.P. Gopi Kumar, who claimed he had personally handed over part of the amount to the Appellant.

 

 

 

 

The Supreme Court’s Analysis

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh set aside both convictions, undertaking a granular re-appreciation of the evidence in each transaction.

On the trap transaction, the Court noted a series of features that undercut the prosecution’s theory. The Appellant himself was never caught with any money and no test was conducted to link him to the recovery. More tellingly, the evidence showed that the Appellant had twice been directly offered money, once by the complainant and once, on an unrelated matter, by the intermediary himself and on both occasions had declined to keep it, redirecting it instead to be collected at his residence. The Court found this behaviour, if the prosecution’s version were true, difficult to reconcile with a public servant who had allegedly made the demand in person and had no apparent reason to avoid direct acceptance. The Court also faulted the investigating agency for closing the trap at the point of recovery from the intermediary rather than following the money to the Appellant’s residence, which would have furnished direct proof of receipt. Relying on its earlier decision in R.P.S. Yadav v. CBI (2015) 11 SCC 642, the Court held that a demand followed by handover to an intermediary is not enough; the chain of proof must be carried through, by cogent evidence, to the point where the money is shown to have reached or been intended to reach, the Accused.

On the Gopi Kumar transaction, where the Appellant was said to have personally accepted a partial payment at his residence, the Court found the evidence resting solely on the mutually corroborating testimony of the approver-intermediary and the complainant, both interested participants in the same transaction, with no independent witness, call record, or recovery to support it. Significantly, the Appellant’s own contemporaneous travel diary placed him away from Palakkad on the one date attributable to this transaction in the intermediary’s earlier statement, a discrepancy the prosecution never explained.

Throughout, the Court invoked the principles laid down by the Constitution Bench in Neeraj Dutta v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2023) 4 SCC 731, reaffirming that proof of demand and acceptance is the gravamen of offences under Sections 7 and 13 of the Act and that the presumption under Section 20 arises only once these foundational facts are independently established, not merely suspected. It also reiterated the settled rule of prudence, traceable to Sarwan Singh v. State of Punjab AIR 1957 SC 637, that approver testimony, while legally admissible, requires corroboration in material particulars connecting the accused, not merely the transaction, with the offence.

Shomdeepta Chanda

Associate

The Indian Lawyer & Allied Services

 

 

 

Editor’s Comments

The Judgment is a significant restatement of the evidentiary rigour required in cases built on intermediary or approver evidence. It clarifies that the law does recognise acceptance of a bribe through another person as sufficient to fasten liability on a public servant, but only where reliable evidence independently establishes that the intermediary was acting under the accused’s authority and that the money was intended for, or reached, the accused. Where the record instead reveals inconsistencies between the Accused’s alleged conduct and his conduct in comparable transactions, an incomplete trap, or an unrefuted alibi, courts must resist bridging that gap through inference alone. For prosecuting agencies, the ruling underscores the importance of carrying an investigation through to the point of actual receipt by the principal accused, rather than concluding it at the intermediary stage.

Sushila Ram Varma

Advocate & Chief Consultant

The Indian Lawyer & Allied Services

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