Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice N Kotiswar Singh at the Supreme Court of India modified the order of conviction as was accorded to the accused Devendra by the District & Sessions Court, Chandrapur for the offences under Section 7, 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act whereby he had been sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 2 years and to pay a fine amount.
The accused had been working as Assistant Town Planner at Chandrapur and is alleged to have demanded illegal gratification of Rs.6,000/- on 28.10.2005 from the complainant in order to issue a No Objection Certificate with regards to his plot for conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural land. The prosecution had claimed that the panchas had been summoned and the trap was successful in the presence of the panch witness and the tainted currency note was recovered from the accused.
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Accordingly, the chargesheet had been filed and the prosecution proceeded to examine its 6 witnesses to substantiate its allegations and the District Judge, Chandrapur vide its judgment proceeded to convict the accused by imposing a sentence of punishment for 2 years and fine.
The appeal as had been preferred by the accused was dismissed and against these concurrent findings, the accused had moved before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Advocate Surabhi Godbole (Naidu) representing the accused argued that despite the aspect that there were concurrent findings on convictions by the District Judge and the High Court, the impugned judgments suffered on account of non-appreciation of the vital aspects and since the prosecution had failed to substantiate its allegations with the foundational facts, since there were glaring procedural irregularities in the procedure of conducting the alleged trap and the judgments as had been passed by the lower Courts warranted interference in the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court, as much as at least with regards to the quantum of punishment as had been awarded by the Lower Courts.
Appreciating the contentions and the arguments so advanced, the Supreme Court proceeded to modify the sentence of conviction by invoking Article 142 of The Constitution of India by modifying his sentence to the one already which had been already undergone by him i.e., a period of 16 days, wherein he was taken in custody after his arrest in 2005. As such, the sentence of rigorous imprisonment of 2 years was set aside with a direction to the accused to pay a fine amount of Rs.1,00,000/- to the Supreme Court Legal Services Authority.
Advocates Surabhi (Godbole) Naidu, Anagha Satyajit Desai (Advocate On Record), Mitesh Singh Bais, Homesh Chauhan and Dhruv Sharma represented the accused.
