Case: A.Jayaram &amp; Another Etc Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh Byc.B.I

All the aforesaid appeals were heard analogously because the criminal proceedings instituted against the appe llants in these appeals, being the officers of the State Government of Andhra Pradesh and dealers of fertilizers in the State of Andhra Pradesh related to an alleged scandal in transporting imported fertilisers from the ports of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to different destinations in the State of Andhra Pradesh. A tabular statement indicating the numbers of the appeals in this Court, corresponding numbers of the appeals in the Andhra Pradesh High Court and corresponding numbers of the criminal cases in the trial court out of which the appeals in the High Court arose is givenand others are dealers. The Special Judge for Fertilizers Transport Cases (A.P.) acquitted all the accused in the criminal cases instituted against the officers and dealers. But on appeals by the State of Andhra Pradesh, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh by the impugned judgments reversed the orders of acquittal and convicted all the appellants. As the Criminal Appeal No. 310 of 1989 was taken up first for hearing and was argued at length as the main appeal and learned counsel appearing for the appellants in the other appeals supplemented the arguments by drawing attention of this Court to the special facts relating to such appeals, we propose to deal with the arguments advanced in Criminal Appeal No. 310 of 1989 at length.Criminal Appeal No. 310 of 1989 has been preferred by Accused No. 2 District Agricultural Officer Nandiyal (DAO) and Accused No. 3 Assistant Agricultural Officer Nandiyal (AAO) Accused No.1 who was a dealer in fertiliser was also convicted by the High Court. Both A-2 and A-3 have been convicted by the High Court under Section 120B read with Section 420 I.P.C. and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs.100/- and in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month. They were further convicted under Section 5(2) read with Section 5(1) (d) of prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs.100/- and in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month. They were also sentenced to imprisonment till the rising of the Court. The dealer accused No.1 was however convicted under Section 477- A I.P.C. and was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs.100/- in default to unergo rigorous imprisonment for one month. He was also sentenced to detention till the rising of the Court. It may be indicated here that the Government Officers in the other appeals were sentenced similarly on similar evidence.

Reasoning:
In cases depending largely upon circumstantial evidene there is always a danger that conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof. The Court must satisfy itself that various circumstanced in the chain of evidence should be established clearly and that th e completed chain must be such as to rule out a reasonable likelihood of the innocence of the accused. When the main link goes, the chain of circumstances gets snapped and other circumstances cannot in any manner establish the guilt of the accused beyond all reasonable doubts. It is at this juncture the court has to be watchful and avoid the danger of allowing the suspicion to take the place of legal proof for sometimes unconsci ously it may happen to be a short step between moral certainty and legal proof. At times it can be a case of `may be true. But there is a long mental distance between `may be true and `must be true and the same divides conjectures from sure conclusions.It has been contended that there is no convincing and unimpeachable evidence which unerringly points out to the guilt of the accused and in the facts of the case, no conclusion other than complicity of the accused for the offence charged, is possible. Hence, conviction of the appellant on proobability, surmise or conjecture was notgiving our anxious consideration to the facts and circumstances of the case and considering the judgments by both the courts and evidences adduced in the case through which we have been taken by the learned counsel for the parties, it appears to us that a large scale fraud had been committed in the matter of transportation of fertilisers from the ports of arrival to various destinations in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Such fertilisers had been brought at a point of time when the State was in dire need of good quality of fertilisers for cultivation. It is the case of the prosecution that large scale fraud had been committed by a large number of government officials in conspiracy with the dealers in fertilisers who were entrusted to take the fertilisers from the port to various government godowns. The prosecution case is because there was a conspiracy involving reasonable government officials, the fraud could not be detected earlier. Thereafter, when the State Police was entrusted with the enquiry, for some inexplicable reasons, the enquiry appeared to be tardy. In the meantime, uproar was made in the State Assembly and the newspapers published the news of large scale scandal relating to transportation of fertilisers. The embarrassed State Government thereafter entrusted the C.B.I. to make enquiries. The C.B.I. made enquiries and charge sheets were filed. There is no manner of doubt that by that time it was quite late and the C.B.I. was handicapped in causing more effective enquiry. Despite such fact, it appears to us that the C.B.I. has done excellent job by examining the lorry owners, the clerks of the lorry owners, the officials of different check posts and also the purchasers of fertilisers at different places for the purpose of showing that the fertilisers lifted from the port and stated to have been transported at different destinations had in fact not been transported in the manner alleged but on the basis of false entries made by the government officials and also by issuing false certificate of such transportation payments had been made.Unfortunately, no evidence has been led whether fertilisers in fact had not been delivered on the relevant date at the destination by proving the stock register at the relevant time. It is really unfortunate that in a case of such magnitude senior officials of the concerned department were not examined. No witness from the locality of the godown was also examined to show that on the relevant dates no delivery of fertiliser at the destination had taken place. Unless by unimpeachable and convincing evidence, the factum of non delivery of such fertilisers with reference to actual stock position on the relevant date can be clearly established, in our view, it becomes very difficult to proceed on the footing that the concerned government officials issued false certificate about receipt of the goods on the dates in question. There is force in the contention of the learned counsel for the appellants that it was not unlikely that some fertilisers had in fact been delivered to the government officials at the destination. On the basis of such delivery, the certificates had been issued by them. It 0is not the case of the prosecution that the quality of the fertilisers was required to be examined by the officers at the receiving end and they had proper infrastructure to make such exercise. It has been rightly contended that it was not established that the fertilisers was not available anywhere in the locality so that it was not possible to replace the quantity of fertiliser after selling the original consignment. Simply on the basis of evidence given by lorry owners that their lorries did not carry the fertiliser or such lorries had gone to different places and some fertilisers were sold by the dealers to other persons, non delivery of fertiliser a t the destination by other means can not be fully ruled out. The circumstances are undoubtedly very intriguing and raise considerable doubt but in the absence of unimpeachable direct evidence about the actual stock position at the receiving end, the indirect circumstantial evidences, in our view do not establish the prosecution case beyond all reasonable doubts. It is true that there is no absolute standard of proof in a criminal trial and the court should not nurture fanciful doubts by exaggerated devotion to the rule of benefit of doubt but in a case of circumstantial evidence all the links in the chain of events from which irresistible conclusion about the guilt of the accused for the offence alleged can be drawn, must be established beyond the pale of reasonable doubt. The court has to be watchful and avoid the danger of allowing suspicion to take the place of legal proof. Conviction can not be based on circumstances indicating that the prosecution case is quite likely to be true. For basing the conviction in a case governed by circumstantial evidence, the facts established must rule out any likelihood of innocence of the accused. The exact stock position on the alleged date of delivery of fertiliser which would have repelled any other possibility is unfortunately not forthcoming. It does not appear that any attempt to establish the actual stock position of fertiliser in the godown in question on the relevant date or soon thereafter with reference to register of stock or any other contemporaneous document h as been made. It is only through negative and indirect evidence the prosecution is attempting to establish that the fertiliser had not been delivered.Such evidence would have been very convincing to corroporate the direct evidence about the stock position in the event the correctness of such stock position was challenged. So long the possibility of some other conclusion cannot be fully ruled out, the prosecution case remains in the realm ofthe facts of the case, we are of the view that the government officials who are appellants in some of these appeals cannot be held to be guilty with all certainty and they are entitled to get the benefit of doubt. The appeals, preferred by the government officials therefore, should be allowed by setting aside the conviction of sentence passed against them by the High Court. It appears to us that although the High Court reversed the orders of acquittal in convicting the government officials, the High Court perhaps felt that some convincing evidences we re lacking and it is not unlikely that for the said reasons, although the High Court convicted the government officials for serious offences charged against them only a token sentence of fine of Rs.100/- and detention till the rising of the Court had been passed which sentence normally should not have beenfar as the appeals preferred by the dealers of the fertilisers are concerned, it appears to us that direct and positive evidences have been led by the prosecution to show that the fertilisers were not transported by the dealers in the manner alleged by them. If the dealers had transported the fertilisers by a different route or by any other transport and if they had sold different fertilisers, such facts were within their special knowledge and in the facts of the case, the dealers ought to have satisfied the court that the fertilisers had in fact been transported by other transports and in a manner different from what was mentioned in the bills. The evidence adduced by the prosecution by examining lorry owners, clerks of such owners, officers of the check posts on the usual routes convincingly point out that the fertiliser was not transported in the way it appeared in the bills since certified by the government officials at the destination. If some fertilisers of equal quantity had been handed over at the destination, it was not unlikely that the government officials having taken delivery of such fertilisers without appreciating the fraud and with reference to the record of loading of the fertiliser at port, would be justified in issuing certificate about transportation at reasonable rate by the shortest route. As the possiblity of delivering fertiliser of similar quantity which may not be qualitatively same, by procuring them locally, when non availability of fertiliser in the region had not been established by the prosecution, cannot be fully ruled out, the government officers, in our view, were entitled to benefit of doubt. But in the facts of the case, such benefit will not be available to t he dealers.