HC acquits cop from bribery charges on "shaky" evidence

Describing the evidence as 'shaky', the Bombay High Court has acquitted a police inspector who was convicted by a special court on charges of accepting bribe from a person to hand over documents to him for putting up a claim before Motor Accident Claim Tribunal.
Hearing an appeal filed by police officer Manik Sathe against his conviction, High Court Justice M L Tahiliyani set aside the lower court order of April 2008 which held the accused guilty of offences under sections 7 and 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).
The judge held that three prosecution witnesses had given different accounts of how many currency notes were given as bribe. Besides, the complaint (of bribe) was not verified by the prosecution and hence could not be proved.

"Therefore, to my mind, neither the demand nor acceptance (of bribe) is proved by the prosecution. A charge, under Section 7 as well as charge of misconduct punishable under Section 13(2) of the Act, must fail," the judge said.
"There were glaring discrepancies and contradictions in evidence of the 3 witnesses. One witness said there were five currency notes of Rs 100 denomination. Another witness said there were two bundles of notes of Rs 500 denomination while another witness disclosed that only one currency note of Rs 500 was removed from the Inspector's wallet," the judge said.
"An important factor to be noted is that though the trousers of the appellant glittered (because the currency notes were smeared with chemical powder) under ultra violet rays, the other articles found in the wallet did not glitter," the judge said.

"This part of evidence cannot be believed in as much as if currency note or notes were kept in the wallet they must have come into contact with other notes or papers in the wallet. Therefore, other articles should also have glittered. However, according to witnesses, the other articles did not glitter," noted the judge in his order delivered recently.
One of the witnesses had gone with the complainant to meet the accused police officer. However, he (the witness) waited outside while the complainant went inside Nehru Nagar police station to pay the bribe. Hence, the witness could not see the demand being made and subsequent payment of the bribe given to the policeman. As such, the complaint could not be verified.

The High Court said the trial court should not have relied upon such "shaky" evidence.