NDLI: Ashok Tshering Bhutia Vs. State of Sikkim

Content Provider	Supreme Court of India
e-ISSN	30484839
Language	English
Access Restriction	NDLI
Subject Keyword	Prevention of Corruption Act 1988: c s. 13(2) and 13(1)(e)
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Law Judgement
Jurisdiction	India
Act(s) Referred	Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (49 of 1988)
Case Type	Appeal
Court	Supreme Court of India
Disposal Nature	Appeal Allowed
Headnote	Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988s. 13(2) and 13(1)(e) - Charge sheet against appellant-police officer alleging that he was found in possession of assets, dis-proportionate to his known sources of income, to the tune of Rs. 18 lakhs, which was acquired by abusing his official position during the period from 1987-1996 - Appellant submitted the required information vide document Ext. D-4 giving full details of the properties acquired and possessed by him on plain paper after lodging of the FIR - Grant of sanction by Director General of Police to prosecute the appellant - Conviction and sentence u/s. 13(2) and 13(1)(e) by Special Judge - Upheld by the High Court - Sustainability of - Held: Not sustainable - Prosecution has to establish that the pecuniary assets acquired by the public servant are disproportionately larger than his known sources of income and then it is for the public servant to account for such excess. Offence becomes complete on the failure of the public servant to account for or explain such excess - On facts, electricity and telephone bills were not proved and as such the amount shown therein cannot be taken into account . Appellant did not fill up the form as prescribed under the 1981 Rules since the form had never been prescribed u/r. 19 - Not filling up the form would make the appellant liable for disciplinary proceedings under service rules - Non- compliance of the 1981 Rules would not adversely affect the evidentiary value of Ext.D-4 and the appellant could not be fastened with criminal liability- High Court erred in not placing A reliance on the evidence contained in Ext. D-4 - Taking into consideration the contents of Ext. D-4, the alleged unexplained income of the appellant is only Rs. 2,71,613.64 which is significantly lower than what had been alleged by the prosecution - Check period had been very long and it is easily possible that a small over-estimation of the respondent's expenditure would have been multiplied and could easily explain the said amount - Alleged unexplained income remains merely a marginal/paltry sum which any government employee can save every year - Thus, order of the courts below set aside - Sikkim Government Servants Conduct Rules, 1981 - r. 19. s. 13(2) and 13(1 )(e) - Defect or irregularity in investigation - Effect of - Held: Has no bearing on the competence of the court or procedure relating to cognizance or trial, unless a miscarriage of justice has been caused thereby - On facts, there was an oral direction by the Superintendent of Police to the concerned officer to the investigate the case - Issue as to whether the oral order could meet the requirement of law is a technical issue - There is nothing on record to show that the investigation had been conducted unfairly.s. 19 - Grant of sanction to prosecute - Invalid sanction - Effect of - Held: Mere error, omission or irregularity in F sanction is not considered to be fatal unless it has resulted in a failure of justice or has been occasioned thereby- s. 19 (1) is procedural and does not go to the root of the jurisdiction - Once the cognizance has been taken by the court under Cr.P.C., it cannot be said that an invalid police report is the foundation of jurisdiction of the court to take cognizance - On facts, in absence of anything to show that any defect or irregularity in obtaining sanction caused a failure of justice, it cannot be said that sanction was granted without taking into account the assets and income shown in the document. Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973: s. 391 - Additional evidence at appellate stage - Held: Is permissible in case of a failure of justice - However, such power must be exercised by the court sparingly and only in exceptional suitable cases where the court is satisfied that directing additional evidence would serve the interests of justice - On facts, the electricity and telephone bills were not proved at the time of trial and in absence thereof, the documents cannot be relied upon - Thus, the judgements by the courts below suffered from procedural error and the amount shown in the bill cannot be taken into account.
Judge	Hon'ble Dr. Justice B.S. Chauhan
Neutral Citation	2011 INSC 162
Petitioner	Ashok Tshering Bhutia
Respondent	State Of Sikkim
SCR	[2011] 3 S.C.R. 242
Judgement Date	2011-02-25
Case Number	945

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Ashok Tshering Bhutia Vs. State of Sikkim

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