Ramaswami, J. - (1.) The appellant was tried for offences under S. 161, Indian Penal Code and S. 5 (2) read with S. 5 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act by Special Judge, Anti-Corruption, Lucknow who by his judgment, dated January 8, 1962 convicted the appellant and sentenced him to three years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2,000. In default for payment of fine the appellant was further ordered to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year. The appellant preferred an appeal to the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, which dismissed the appeal by its judgment, dated March 20, 1964 and affirmed the conviction and sentence imposed by the Special Judge upon the appellant. This appeal is brought, by special leave, from the judgment of the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench.
(2.) The appellant was employed as Assistant Director Enforcement, Government of India, Ministry of Commerce at Kanpur and used to deal with matters regarding the cancellation of licences of cloth dealers at Kanpur. On or about September 5, 1951 the appellant received a confidential letter, dated August 30, 1951 from the District Magistrate, Kanpur. On the same date the appellant called one Ram Lal Kapoor who was the Legal Adviser of New Victoria Mills Ltd. at his house. The appellant showed him the letter of the District Magistrate and on the strength of that letter he demanded through Ram Lal Kapoor a bribe of Rupees 30,000 from Sidh Gopal for saving his licence from being cancelled. It appears that Sidh Gopal was a partner of various firms dealing in cloth and it was suspected that these firms were indulging in black-marketing in cloth. Sidh Gopal came to the appellant on September 9, 1951 to talk over the matter and the appellant made the same demand of bribe from him. On September 11, 1951, the appellant is alleged to have agreed with Ram Lal Kapoor to receive a sum of Rs. 10,000 as first instalment of the bribe from Sidh Gopal through Ram Lal Kapoor. Accordingly on September 11, 1951 at about 8 p.m. the appellant went to the house of Ram Lal Kapoor and accepted the bribe of Rs. 10,000 in currency notes and also a Than of long cloth from the said Ram Lal Kapoor undertaking that in lieu thereof the appellant would not report against Sidh Gopal and thereby save his licence from cancellation. A raid had been pre-arranged and the raiding party consisting of Shri Satish Chander P. W. 1 and Shri Omkar Singh P. W. 2, the District Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent of Police, respectively, were lying in wait at the premises of Ram Lal Kapoor. At about 9-45 p. m. the appellant came out of the bungalow of Ram Lal Kapoor and on the agreed signal being given, the raiding party came and on search of the appellant an amount of Rs. 10,000 was found from his person. At the time of the recovery of the money the appellant made a statement that the amount received by him was as a loan as he wanted to purchase a bungalow. The defence of the appellant was that he never negotiated with Ram Lal Kapoor or Sidh Gopal regarding the bribe but the appellant had been falsely implicated because he had prosecuted one Bhola Nath of the firm of M/s. Mannulal Sidh Gopal under S. 7 of the Essential Supplies Act and the District Magistrate had arrested Bhola Nath and kept him under detention under the powers conferred by the Preventive Detention Act. In order to take revenge for the arrest of Bhola Nath, Sidh Gopal and Ram Lal Kapoor had conspired together and falsely implicated the appellant. The Special Judge disbelieved the case of the appellant and held that the prosecution evidence sufficiently established the charges under S. 161, Indian Penal Code and S. 5 (2) read with S. 5 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The findings of the trial Court have been affirmed by the Allahabad High Court in appeal which also rejected the case of the appellant as untrue and held that the amount of Rs. 10,000 was received by the appellant from Ram Lal Kapoor by way of illegal gratification and not as a loan for purchasing a house.
(3.) The first question for determination is whether a presumption under sub-s. (1) of S. 4 of the Prevention of Corruption Act arises in this case. That provision reads as follows: "Where in any trial of an offence punishable under S. 161 or S. 165, I. P. C. it is proved that an accused person has accepted or obtained, or has agreed to accept or attempted to obtain, for himself or for any other person, any gratification (other than legal remuneration) or any valuable thing from any person, it shall be presumed unless the contrary is proved that he accepted or obtained, or agreed to accept or attempted to obtain, that gratification or that valuable thing, as the case may be, as a motive or reward such as is mentioned in the said S. 161, or, as the case may be, without consideration or for a consideration which he knows to be inadequate." It was held by this Court in Dhanvantari Balwantrai vs. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1964 SC 575, that in order to raise the presumption under this sub-section what the prosecution has to prove is that the accused person has received "gratification other than legal remuneration" and when it is shown that he has received a certain sum of money which was not a legal remuneration, then the condition prescribed by this section is satisfied and the presumption thereunder must be raised. It was contended in that case that the mere receipt of any money did not justify the raising of the presumption and that something more than the mere receipt of the money had to be proved. The argument was rejected by this Court and it was held that the mere receipt of the money was sufficient to raise a presumption under the sub-section. A similar argument was addressed in C. I. Emden vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1960 SC 548. In rejecting that argument this Court observed: "If the word 'gratification' is construed to mean money paid by way of bribe then it would be futile or superfluous to prescribe for the raising of the presumption. Technically it may no doubt be suggested that the object which the statutory presumption serves on this construction is that the Court may then presume that the money was paid by way of a bribe as a motive or reward as required by S. 161 of the Code. In our opinion this could not have been the intention of the Legislature in prescribing the statutory presumption under S. 4 (1)." This Court proceeded to state: "It cannot be suggested that the relevant clause in S. 4(1) which deals with the acceptance of any valuable thing should be interpreted to impose upon the prosecution an obligation to prove not only that the valuable thing has been received by the accused but that it has been received by him without consideration or for a consideration which he knows to be inadequate. The plain meaning of this clause undoubtedly requires the presumption to be raised whenever it is shown that the valuable thing has been received by the accused without anything more. If that is the true position in respect of the construction of this part of S. 4 (1) it would be unreasonable to hold that the word 'gratification' in the same clause imports the necessity to prove not only the payment of money but the incriminating character of the said payment. It is true that the Legislature might have used the word 'money' or 'consideration' as has been done by the relevant section of the English statute; ......" It must, therefore, be held that, in the circumstances of the present case, the requirements of sub-s. (1) of S. 4 have been fulfilled and the presumption thereunder must be raised.;