GURDIAL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 9.3.2006, passed by Special Judge, Ferozpur, convicting and sentencing Gurdial Singh appellant-accused (herein referred as 'the accused') to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000 for the offence under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (herein referred as the Act..

(2.) Accused Gurdial Singh, was an office Kanungo, holding control of the area of vil-lage Mallanwala. Complaint Jarnail Singh owned land measuring 15 acres in the rev-enue estate of village Mallanwala out of which 8 acres of land is recorded in the name of Iqbal Singh. The land of his cousins ad-joins to the land of complaint. Doubting that some encroachment of his land was made by his cousins, two months prior to the oc-currence, he had moved an application be-fore Tehsildar, Zira, for demarcation who marked it to the accused. The complainant met him 2-3 times in this connection but the matter was put off by the accused. On 16.2.2001, he had again met the accused for demarcation. On this, he stated that the same could not be done without payment of Rs.4,00.0 as illegal gratification. However, the complainant showed his helplessness at this, the matter was settled at Rs. 1,500. The complainant further told that he was not having ready money with him. At this, theaccused responded that he should "come to his office on 19.2.2001 along with bribe money and then he would go to his fields for demarcation. Since the complainant was reluctant to pay the bribe money, therefore, he met Balkar Singh, who advised him to complain about the same to the Vigilance Department. As such, the complainant along with Balkar Singh, shadow witness, went to the office of DSP Sukhdev Singh and got recorded his statement Ex. PB, on the basis of which FIR was recorded. DSP Sukhdev Singh, after treating the currency notes as handed over by the complainant to him, also recorded the numbers of the same in the memo and handed back to the com-plainant for paying the same to the accused on demand and not to shake hands with him before or after payment. Demonstration of the solution was done by the Investigating Officer and the solution was destroyed. The Investigating Officer washed his hands with the soap and water. Balkar Singh was nomi-nated as a shadow witness. Official wit-nesses namely Gurdip Singh, SDO Tejinderpal, Draftsman, both of Public Health Department were also associated in the raiding party. In the way, they were in-troduced with the complainant and the shadow witness and were told about the purpose and process. Accordingly, all of them went to the office of the accused Kanungo whereas the said members of the raiding party remained behind. In the mean time, on receiving the signal, DSP Sukhdev Singh along with other members of the raid-ing party reached the office where accused was sitting in his chair. After revealing his identity, the accused was inquired about the receipt of the bribe money, whereupon the accused started apologizing. He was hold-ing two currency notes of Rs. 100 each in his left hand and produced the same before the DSP Sukhdev Singh. On comparison num-bers of the currency notes tallied with thememo already prepared. Thereafter. DSP Sukhdev Singh procured a glass of water in which Sodium Carbonate was poured and a solution was prepared. On the instructions of DSP Sukhdev Singh, the official witnesses dipped their hands one by one in the said solution but its colour did not change. When in the same solution, the hands of the ac- I cused were got washed then the colour of the solution became pink. The said solution was transferred into the nip which was duly ; sealed by DSP Sukhdev Singh with his seal bearing impression "SS". On personal search, a sum of Rs.340, identity card and the wrist watch were recovered from the accused, which were also taken into posses-sion by the Investigating Officer. Then the inquiry about demarcation application dated 20.12.2000 having copy of the jamabandi, annexed thereto, was made whereupon he got procured the same from the small roomstore of his office. This was the application which was marked by Tehsildar, Zira to the accused with a direc-tion to report about the same within 15 days. The said application along with copy of the jamabandi was taken into possession by the Investigating Officer. He also prepared the rough site plan of the place of occurrence; recorded the statements of the witnesses and on completion of investigation challan against the accused was presented in the Court.

(3.) The accused was charged under Sec-tions 7, 13(2) of the Prevention of Corrup-tion Act, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.