Reverting a Karnataka High Court conviction order, a bench of Justices S B Sinha and H S Bedi said Ganapathi Sanya Naik could not be convicted as there was no evidence that the currency notes had been touched by the appellant or recovered from his person.

Merely finding the currency notes from the table would not lead to the conviction as it might have been surreptitiously kept to blame the accused, the court observed in a recent judgement.

No justification

“We are thus of the opinion that in an appeal against acquittal where the High Court’s interference is in a manner circumscribed, there was no justification in upsetting the judgment of the trial court,” said the bench granting relief to Naik.

Ignoring principle

The High Court had ignored the principle, reiterated time and again by Apex Court, that a finding of fact arrived at on a proper appreciation of the evidence should not be interfered with merely because the appellate court was of an opinion that a view different from the one taken by the trial court was possible, the judgement said.

The currency notes had not been touched by the appellant and the defence version that they had been surreptitiously put on the table while the appellant was otherwise  engaged in some activity was a possibility on the evidence and could not be ruled out, said the court concurring the version of the trial court.

On March 31, 2003, the High Court had sentenced Naik to six months’ imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000, reverting the order of the trial court which had acquitted the accused due to lack of evidence.

Naik was working as an accountant in the Tahsil office at Bisalkoppa in Sirsi Taluk in Karnataka and had allegedly demanded Rs 1,000 bribe from Nagaraj for mutation in his name.

On a complaint by Nagaraj to the Lok Ayukta, the police had laid a trap to nab Naik.
Nagaraj and two independent witnesses had gone to Naik with the bribe money.
Naik allegedly did not touch the money and asked the complainant to keep it on the table.

He allegedly placed a file on it and handed over the mutation papers to Nagaraj.
During the raid, the police recovered the identified notes and booked Naik on bribery charges under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.