Just Standing There Isn’t a Crime: SC on Bribery Conspiracy

The Supreme Court has held that an officer’s mere presence when a superior accepted a bribe cannot prove criminal conspiracy. Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale dismissed UP’s appeals against the acquittal of three Central Excise officers in a 1995 case, upholding the Allahabad High Court’s finding that demand, acceptance and conspiracy were never proved. The Court cited withheld tape-recorded evidence and stressed conspiracy needs a “meeting of minds,” not mere suspicion or association, dismissing the appeals under Article 136.

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Just Standing There Isn’t a Crime: SC Says Presence Alone Can’t Prove Bribery Conspiracy

The Supreme Court has ruled that a public servant’s mere presence at the spot where a superior officer allegedly accepted a bribe is not enough, by itself, to prove criminal conspiracy. A Bench of Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale dismissed three appeals filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh against a 2019 Allahabad High Court order acquitting three Central Excise officers in a 1995 corruption case.

The case, State of Uttar Pradesh vs A.K. Gaba & Ors., arose after Central Excise Superintendent R.K. Srivastava allegedly demanded Rs. 80,000 from a complainant, Kuldeep Tiwari, to return factory records seized during a raid. A CBI trap caught Srivastava with the cash, but the prosecution also charged Inspectors A.K. Gaba, Alok Gupta and Dushyant Kumar under Section 120-B IPC (criminal conspiracy) read with Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, mainly because they were present nearby when the demand or acceptance occurred.

While the Special Judge, Lucknow had convicted all four in 2014, the Allahabad High Court overturned the conviction in 2019, holding that the prosecution failed to prove demand, acceptance or conspiracy. Affirming the acquittal, the Supreme Court held: “The conspiracy cannot be inferred merely on the basis of suspicion or association and there must be cogent material indicating meeting of minds between the accused persons.”

The Court relied on its earlier rulings in State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Sandhu (2005) 11 SCC 600 and Esher Singh v. State of A.P. (2004) 11 SCC 585 to reiterate that conspiracy requires a prior agreement and “meeting of minds,” and cannot rest on a few isolated circumstances. It also invoked the principle from B. Jayaraj v. State of A.P. and P. Satyanarayana Murthy v. State of A.P. that proof of demand is the “gravamen” of offences under Sections 7 and 13 of the PC Act, without which the statutory presumption under Section 20 cannot be invoked.

A key factor weighing against the prosecution was its failure to produce a tape recording the complainant claimed had captured the bribe demand. Citing Tomaso Bruno v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2015) 7 SCC 178, the Bench held that withholding such crucial electronic evidence justified an adverse inference under Section 114, Illustration (g) of the Evidence Act.

Reaffirming the settled principle that an acquittal carries a “double presumption” of innocence (Chandrappa v. State of Karnataka), the Court held the High Court’s view was a plausible one that did not warrant interference under Article 136 of the Constitution. The appeals were accordingly dismissed.