BHARAT RAJ MEENA v. CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
2026 INSC 999 · CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 4732 OF 2024
Coram: Justice Dipankar Datta · Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh
The chain of proof must be carried through cogent evidence to where the money is shown to have reached the accused.
Yes. The chain of proof must be carried through cogent evidence to where the money is shown to have reached the accused. A demand and an initial handover to an intermediary are not enough; recovery from the intermediary alone, without more, establishes only the intermediary's unauthorised receipt and does not establish that the money was ever intended to reach, or did reach, the accused, so the presumption under Section 20 does not arise. (¶71, 72, 73, 74)
Headnote
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 — s.7 — s.13 — s.20 — Demand and acceptance — Approver evidence — Intermediary —
PC Act, 1988 — s.20 — Foundational facts —
Held: The presumption under Section 20 of the Act does not arise unless the prosecution establishes the foundational facts of demand and acceptance by the accused. Proof of demand may be circumstantial, but mere recovery of tainted currency without such proof does not establish the offence. (¶46, 47, 49)
PC Act, 1988 — s.7 — Explanation 2 — Intermediary —
Held further: Acceptance of gratification through an intermediary can satisfy Section 7 only if the intermediary is shown to have acted under the accused's authority or direction. Mere receipt of money by a third person cannot automatically fasten criminal liability on the public servant. (¶50, 51)
Approver evidence — Corroboration —
Held further: An approver's testimony must be corroborated in material particulars connecting the accused, not merely the transaction, with the offence. An accomplice who has secured pardon has an evident incentive to minimise his own culpability. (¶52, 53, 70)
Chain of proof — Presumption —
Held further: The chain of proof must be carried through cogent evidence to where the money is shown to have reached the accused. Recovery from an intermediary alone does not establish the money reached the accused, so the presumption under Section 20 does not arise; both appeals allowed and the appellant acquitted of all charges. (¶71, 74, 88)
In the Court's own words
Paragraph 71To hold the appellant guilty of obtainment or acceptance for the purposes of Section 7 of the Act, this Court would have to draw the further inference that the appellant would, in fact, have received the money at his residence had the trap not intervened, and that this was his established modus operandi for consummating such transactions. That inference is not compelled by the record, it is, at best, one possible suggestion of what might have happened next, competing on equal footing with the equally available hypothesis that PW-2 claiming to be close to the appellant having himself pocketed the sums in these transactions and retained the money for himself, or intended to deal with it in some other manner not sanctioned or even unknown to the appellant. Nothing in the record excludes that hypothesis. As held in Neeraj Dutta (supra), an inference of guilt from circumstances is permissible only where the circumstances are “incompatible with the innocence of the accused or any other reasonable hypotheses”, a standard this record does not meet on the specific question of acceptance/obtainment by the appellant.
Paragraph 72The permission to draw an inferential deduction where certain foundational facts are proved is not an invitation to bridge, relying on circumstantial evidence, whatever residual gap separates the “money collected by an intermediary at the accused's apparent direction” from “the accused himself obtained or accepted that money.” As observed in Neeraj Dutta (supra), “obtain” requires initiative and effort on the part of the recipient, and here, on the specific question of final receipt, the appellant took no further step of any kind apart from the alleged demand made. On the contrary, he left the scene, and the transaction was intercepted at the door of an alleged intermediary before its final leg could occur, if it was ever to occur as described.
Paragraph 73Moreover, in R.P.S. Yadav (supra) the accused was alleged to have directed the complainant to hand the bribe money to a co-accused, acting as intermediary. This Court found the evidence consistent only up to the handing-over of money to the intermediary. Beyond that, the key witness gave contradictory versions as to whether the recovery was from the intermediary’s own pocket or the accused’s, and no hand-wash test was conducted on the accused himself to show the money had actually reached him. Holding that neither witness furnished acceptable evidence that ‘the demand, acceptance and recovery was chronologically proved as against the appellant’, this Court set aside the conviction. The case thus shows that a demand and an initial handover to an intermediary are not enough; the chain must be carried through, by cogent evidence, to the point where the money is shown to have actually reached or been intended for the accused failing which the conviction cannot stand.
Paragraph 74Lastly, it follows that although the foundational facts of demand and of payment to an intermediary are considered proved, and although circumstantial evidence is, in principle, available to this Court to establish acceptance, no inference beyond the merely speculative can be drawn here that the appellant himself accepted, obtained, or would have obtained the gratification. The presumption under Section 20 of the Act does not arise in the first place, since it presupposes proof of acceptance or obtainment by the accused, which, for the reasons above, remains unproved. The prosecution has, at its best, established that money changed hands between a complainant and an intermediary who invoked the appellant’s name. But that itself can be said to be a proof of appellant’s acceptance of bribe. Therefore, for the reasons discussed above, it cannot be said that the prosecution has proved the case against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt and accordingly, conviction of the appellant in C.C. No. 2/2014, arising in Crl. A No. 4733 of 2024, cannot be sustained. (B) Crl. A No. 4732 of 2024 [C.C. No. 3/2015]