In most circumstances, each the bribe giver and the bribe taker find yourself being snug with the implicit association, says the choose.
“In India, the general public are now getting accustomed to the fact that in several government offices, even to do a legal act, public servants expect and accept gratification to motivate them. Those who are frequent visitors to any public office get accustomed to this practice by learning from others or by themselves,” the Madras High Court has mentioned.
Justice G. Jayachandran went on to write: “Even without an express demand, people know well that unless they grease the palm, the work will not be done. More frequent the visits, [the] more accustomed they get to norms fixed by those corrupt officials to do their legal work. The public then start offering bribe without even making any explicit demand.”
He additionally said that most often, each the bribe giver and the bribe taker find yourself being snug with the implicit association and bury their ugly dealings. Only in circumstances the place strangers to the observe face issue in bribing the officers, they both succumb to stress or lodge complaints earlier than the vigilance and anti corruption authorities.
The observations have been made whereas confirming the conviction and two years rigorous imprisonment imposed by a trial court docket on P. Nagarajan and Johnson Devakumar for having acquired a bribe of ₹50,000 from a provider of Coat Combats once they have been serving as Deputy Inspector General and Assistant Sub-Inspector in Central Reserve Police Force.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had prosecuted them in addition to the Kanpur primarily based provider Vijay Khanna of Madhur Enterprises on the premise of discreet data. Though the particular court docket for CBI circumstances in Chennai had convicted him too on July 31, 2018, the provider died thereafter and therefore his attraction bought abated.
According to the prosecution, the provider had credited ₹30,000 into the non-public checking account of Nagarajan in three totally different tranches and ₹20,000 into the account of Devakumar in two tranches in 2013 for clearing his firm’s payments with respect to the availability of 2,464 Coat Combats to the CRPF Group Centre at Avadi close to Chennai.
The two surviving appellants earlier than the High Court contended that it was a sine qua non for the prosecution to show demand as properly acceptance of bribe so as to entice Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Mere deposit of cash within the account, with out their information, couldn’t be construed as unlawful gratification.
Unwilling to be swayed by such an argument, Justice Jayachandran mentioned the requirement to show demand and acceptance of bribe would come up solely in circumstances the place an individual was not inclined to pay unlawful gratification and had reported the matter to the vigilance officers for applicable motion.
Such a requirement could possibly be allotted with if the bribe had been paid with out protest as a result of there can be hardly ever any direct proof to show demand. “Only circumstantial evidence will prove the obtainment of illegal gratification preceded by a demand or expectation of illegal gratification,” the choose mentioned.
He sounded a phrase of warning that within the digital period, when even bribe was being paid by means of on-line banking transactions, it could turn into straightforward for the corrupt to escape from the clutches of legislation if courts insist on direct proof for demand and acceptance even in circumstances the place the bribe giver and bribe taker have been on the identical web page.
In such circumstances, it was enough to show that the receipt of cash was not a authorized remuneration however an unlawful gratification. In the current case, “except denying knowledge about the deposits, there is no explanation forthcoming from the appellants as to why they allowed the receipt and enjoyed it,” the choose concluded.
