BALDEV SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The Appellant has filed the present Special Leave Petition (now Appeal) in an endeavour to set aside the concurrent findings of the Courts below with regard to his conviction and sentence under Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter 'the P.C. Act'). The Special Judge had convicted the Appellant, which came to be sustained by the High Court in terms of its impugned judgment dated 8.7.2013. Accordingly, the Courts below have concurrently found the Appellant guilty, and sentenced him to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for a period of three years and to payment of a fine of Rs. 5000/-, and in default thereof, to further undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for a period of six months.

(3.) According to the Prosecution, a complaint was received from Nishan Singh, an agriculturist who along with his family owned farm land in village Golewala, which, however, was at two separate places, but was being irrigated at the same time. Since this was obviously fraught with inconvenience, the Complainant wanted to have an earlier and separate allocation of canal water for the said two parcels of land. It was in regard to this request that the Appellant had demanded Rs. 2000/- from the Complainant, and the matter was eventually "settled" at Rs. 1000/-. The Complainant paid the said amount to the Appellant in his house, as demanded by him, but after alerting the Vigilance Authorities. These currency notes aggregating to Rs. 1000/- were applied with Phenolphthalein Powder and were handed over to the Appellant in the presence of official/shadow witness, Jaskaran Singh, who was examined as PW 4. Two other official witnesses also constituted the raid party.