PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION ACT: MERE PRESENCE OF OFFICER WHEN SUPERIOR ACCEPTED BRIBE NOT ENOUGH TO INFER CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY

INTRODUCTION

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed in the case of State of Uttar Pradesh Versus A.K Gaba Etc Criminal Appeal No(S). 3383-3385 Of 2025, a foundational principle of criminal jurisprudence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. An officer’s mere presence when a superior demands or accepts a bribe does not, by itself, establish criminal conspiracy. A Bench comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale dismissed the State of Uttar Pradesh’s appeals against the acquittal of three Central Excise Officials in a bribery case that had spanned three decades of litigation.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

The Prosecution’s story began on January 5, 1995, when Superintendent of Central Excise R.K. Srivastava, along with Inspectors A.K. Gaba and Alok Gupta, inspected the premises of M/s Amoli Ceraplast Ltd. in Barabanki and allegedly seized business records without issuing a receipt. It was alleged that Srivastava subsequently demanded Rs 80,000 is illegal gratification from the Complainant, Kuldeep Tewari, for the return of the seized documents. Acting on a Complaint, the CBI laid a trap and the Accused Officers, including Inspector Dushyant Kumar, who allegedly counted the trap, were apprehended.

The CBI filed a charge sheet on November 11, 1997, against the Accused Persons under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Sections 7, 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, along with Sections 114 and 201 IPC. The Special Judge, Lucknow, convicted Srivastava, Gaba, Gupta and Kumar by Judgement dated July 26, 2014, while acquitting a fifth Co-Accused, P.K. Srivastava, on benefit of doubt. On Appeal, the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench), by Judgement dated May 27, 2019, set aside all the convictions and acquitted the Respondents, holding that the Prosecution had failed to prove demand, acceptance and conspiracy. The State of Uttar Pradesh then approached the Supreme Court.

ANALYSIS

The State argued that since the Respondents were present during the seizure of records and during the alleged demand and acceptance of the bribe and had been charged under the umbrella of criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B IPC, it was unnecessary to independently prove the substantive ingredients of the PC Act offences against each individual Accused. Presence and association, the State contended, were sufficient to sustain the conspiracy charge.

The Respondents countered that the absence of independent witnesses was fatal to the Prosecution’s case, requiring the evidence of interested witnesses to be scrutinised with greater care. They further relied on precedent establishing that abuse of position as a public servant is a sine qua non for an offence under Section 13(1)(d) of the PC Act and pointed to the curious circumstance that while the principal accused was charged under Section 7 alone, the other officers were roped in via Section 120-B, undermining the conspiracy theory itself. The Court began by reiterating the settled position on proof of demand under the PC Act, drawing on the well-established rule that mere possession and recovery of currency notes from an accused, without proof of demand, would not establish an offence under Section 7 and Sections 13(1)(d)(i) and (ii) of the Act. Citing its earlier ruling in P. Satyanarayana Murthy v. State of A.P., the Bench held that proof of demand is an indispensable and inflexible statutory requirement, without which no presumption under Section 20 of the Act can arise. Turning specifically to the conspiracy charge, the Court laid down that conspiracy cannot be inferred merely from suspicion or association and that cogent material indicating a meeting of minds between the accused is necessary, with knowledge of indulgence in an illegal act or a legal act by illegal means, being essential and the offence being complete only upon such meeting of minds. Applying this standard, the Bench found that apart from alleging the Respondents’ presence at certain places during the relevant period, the Prosecution had failed to produce any substantive evidence of a prior agreement or concert between the Respondents and the Principal Accused, Srivastava.

The Court also drew adverse inferences against the Prosecution on evidentiary grounds. Notably, the Complainant claimed to have tape-recorded the bribe conversation but the recording was never produced at trial. Applying the principle from Tomaso Bruno v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the Bench invoked Section 114, illustration (g) of the Indian Evidence Act to presume that the withheld evidence would have been unfavourable to the Prosecution’s case. The Bench was further critical of the Trial Court’s approach, observing that the Trial Judge had repeatedly relied on speculative language, using words such as “Sambhavath” (probably) rather than basing conclusions on cogent evidence.

The Court also reaffirmed the narrow scope of appellate interference with an order of acquittal, holding that such interference is warranted only where the findings are perverse or contrary to law and not merely because another view is possible. Since the High Court’s findings suffered from neither infirmity, the Supreme Court declined to disturb the acquittal.

CONCLUSION

Dismissing the Appeals as devoid of merit, the Court concluded that the Prosecution had failed to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the essential ingredients of demand, acceptance and criminal conspiracy. The Judgement is a significant reaffirmation that in corruption prosecutions involving multiple accused, the law demands individualised proof of complicity, mere physical presence at the scene of an alleged bribe transaction, without more, cannot be stretched into an inference of criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B IPC.

SARTHAK KALRA

Senior Legal Associate

The Indian Lawyer & Allied Services

Please log onto our YouTube channel, The Indian Lawyer Legal Tips, to learn about various aspects of the law. Our latest Video link is in below: