Case: M. Narsinga Rao Vs. State Of A.P

3. A summary of the allegations made against the appellant are these :Prasad was to get some amount from Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Corporation for transporting milk to or from the Milk Chilling Centre at Luxettipet (Adilabad district). He approached the appellant for taking prompt steps so as to enable him to get the money disbursed. But appellant demanded Rs. 500/for sending the recommendation in favour of payment of the amount due to PW1. As the appellant persisted with his demand PW1 yielded to the same, but before handing over the money to the appellant PW1 lodged a complaint (Ex. P2) with the DSP of Anti Corruption Bureau. On the basis of the said complaint PW 7 (DSP) registered Ex. P19 FIR and then made all arrangements for a trap to catch the corrupt public servant red handed.4. On 20.4.1989, PW1 brought the currency notes to the office of the ACB for making up the demanded bribe amount. The said currency notes were treated with phenolphthalein powder by or at the direction of PW7 as preparation for the trap. PW1 and the already arranged witness PW2 together went to the house of the appellant by about noon. When appellant asked whether the amount was brought PW1 handed over the phenolphthalein smeared currency notes to the appellant. He accepted the amount and put the currency notes in his pocket. Thereupon, asignal was transmitted to the members of the ACB team who were waiting outside. They suddenly rushed to the place where the appellant was then standing, caught the appellantand the tainted currency notes were recovered from his pocket. All the usual follow up steps were thereafter adopted by the ACB team and on completion of the investigation the case wasagainst the appellant.5. It took four years thereafter for the Special Judge to commence evidence taking for the prosecution. The said long interval, perhaps, helped the appellant as is reflected from the fact that PW1 and PW2 made ain the trial Court and they denied having paid any bribery to the appellant and also denied that appellant demanded the bribe amount. PW1 said, for the first time, that he acted at the behest of one Dr. Krishna Rao and went to the office of the appellant and did everything as directed by the said Krishna Rao. Both the witnesses were declared hostile by the Public Prosecutor and both werein detail. After examining the remaining witnesses for prosecution the appellant was called upon to answer questions put to him under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short `the Code). He then submitted a written statement in which he said that Dr. Krishna Rao bore grudge against him and that person orchestrated this false trap against him by employing PW1 and PW2. According to the appellant, the tainted currency notes were forcibly stuffed into his pocket. He examined two witnesses on the defence side and both of them said that on the dates when the alleged demand was made by the appellant he was on tour at a different place.6. Both the trial Court and the High Court disbelieved the defence evidence in toto and found that PW1 and PW2 were won over by the appellant and that is why they turned against their own version recorded by the investigating officer and subsequently by a magistrate under Section 164 of the Code. The Special Judge ordered those two witnesses to be prosecuted for perjury and the said course suggested by the trial Judge found approval from the High Court also.7. In the appeal the High Court dealt with the contention that it is not possible to draw any presumption against the delinquent public servant in the absence of direct evidence to show that the public servant demanded bribery and that the same was paid to him.

Court's reasoning:
16. The said observation has stood the test of time and can now be followed as the standard of proof. In reaching the conclusion the court can use the process of inferences to be drawn from facts produced or proved. Such inferences are akin to presumptions in law. Law gives absolute discretion to the court to presume the existence of any fact which it thinks likely to have happened. In that process the court may have regard to common course of natural events, human conduct, public or private businessthe facts of the particular case. The discretion is clearly envisaged in Section 114 of the Evidence Act.17. Presumption is an inference of a certain fact drawn from other proved facts. While inferring the existence of a fact from another, the court is only applying a process of intelligent reasoning which the mind of a prudent man would do under similar circumstances. Presumption is not the final conclusion to be drawn from other facts. But it could as well be final if it remains undisturbed later. Presumption in Law of Evidence is a rule indicating the stage of shifting the burden of proof. From a certain fact or facts the court can draw an inference and that would remain until such inference is either disproved or dispelled.18. For the purpose of reaching one conclusion the court can rely on a factual presumption. Unless the presumption is disproved or dispelled or rebutted, the court can treat the presumption as tantamounting to proof. However, as a caution of prudence we have to observe that it may be unsafe to use that presumption to draw yet another discretionary presumption unless there is a statutory compulsion. This Court has indicated so in Suresh Budharmal Kalani v. State of Maharashtra, 1998(4) RCR (Crl.) 433 SC : 1998(7) SCC 337. ``A presumption can be drawn only from factsand not from other presumptionsby a process of probable and logical reasoning."19. Illustration (a) to Section 114 of the Evidence Act says that the court may presume that ``a man who is in the possession of stolen goods soon after the theft is either the thief or has received the goods knowing them to be stolen, unless he can account for his possession." That illustration can profitably be used in the present context as well when prosecution brought reliable materials that appellants pocket contained phenolphthalein smeared currency notes for Rs. 500/when he was searched byDSP of the Anti Corruption Bureau. That by itself may not or need not necessarily lead to a presumption that he accepted that amount from somebody else because there is a possibility of somebody else either stuffing those currency notes into his pocket or stealthily inserting the same therein. But the other circumstances which have been proved in this case and those preceding and succeeding the searching out of the tainted currency notes, are relevant and useful to help the Court to draw a factual presumption that appellant had willingly received the currency notes.20.DSP said thatapproached him on the previous day and lodgedcomplaint stating that appellant was persistently demanding Rs. 500/from him. The currency notes were actually prepared byby smearing them with phenolphthalein powder. When appellant was caughtwith those currency notes he never demurred tothat those notes were not received by him. In fact, the story that such currency notes were stuffed into his pocket was concocted by the appellant only after lapse of a period of 4 years and that too when appellant faced the trial in the Court.21. From those proved facts the Court can legitimately draw a presumption that appellant received or accepted the said currency notes on his own volition. Of course, the said presumption is not an inviolable one, as the appellant could rebut it either throughof the witnesses cited against him or by adducing reliable evidence. But if the appellant fails to disprove the presumption the same would stick and then it can be held by the Court that the prosecution has proved that appellant received the said amount.The aforesaid observation is in consonance with the line of approach which we have adopted now. We may say with great respect to the learned Judges of theBench that the legal principle on this aspect has been correctly propounded therein.24. Regarding the second limb of the contention advanced by Shri Nageshwar Rao, learned counsel for the appellant (that it was not gratification which the appellant has received) we think it is not necessary to deal with the matter in detail because in a recent decision rendered by us the said aspect has been dealt with at length. [Vide Madhukar Bhaskarrao Joshi v. State of Maharashtra, 2000(4) RCR (Crl.) 705 (SC) : JT 2000 (Suppl. 2 ) SC 458]. The following statement made by us in the said decision would be the answer to the aforesaid contention raised by the learned counselpremise to be established on the facts for drawing the presumption is that there was payment or acceptance of gratification. Once the said premise is established the inference to be drawn is that the said gratification was accepted "as motive or reward" for doing or forbearing to do any official act. So the word `gratification need not be stretched to mean reward because reward is the outcome of the presumption which the court has to draw on the factual premise that there was payment of gratification. This will again be fortified by looking at the collocation of two expressions adjacent to each other like `gratification or any valuable thing. If acceptance of any valuable thing can help to draw the presumption that it was accepted as motive or reward for the official act, the word `gratification must be treated in the context to mean any payment for giving satisfaction to the public servant who received it."