The Orissa High Court, on Tuesday acquitted a tax officer from bribery charges after a compliant was lodged for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs. 8,000 for processing the refund claim of the income tax assessee.
A compliant was lodged by Smt. Sudaramani Singh for accepting the said amount of Rs.8,000/- on 12.03.2012 as gratification other than legal remuneration for the above purpose.Later, the CBI Court found the appellant guilty of the offences charged and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/-, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month for the offence under section 7 of the 1988 Act and to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/-, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two months for the offence under section 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) of the 1988 Act with a direction that both the sentences shall run concurrently.
The appellant contended that when the appellant as Tax Assistant had no role in the refund of income tax to the assessee except processing the same to the I.T.O. Sri K.C. Barik, and therefore, there was no occasion on his part to raise any demand of bribe.
Justice S.K. Sahoo observed that “it is well settled that any case instituted without a proper sanction must fail because this being a manifest defect in the prosecution, the entire proceedings are rendered void ab initio. In the first place, there is no question of the presumption beingavailable to the Sanctioning Authority under section 4 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 because at that stage the occasion for drawing a presumption never arises since there is no case in the Court. Secondly, the presumption does not arise automatically but only on proof of certain circumstances, that is to say, where it is proved by evidence in the Court that the money said to have been paid to the accused was actually recovered from his possession. It is only then that the Court may presume the amount received would be deemed to be an illegal gratification.”
Acquitting the appellant, the Court held that “there is force in the submission of the learned counsel for the appellant that P.W.3 is not the competent authority to accord sanction for launching prosecution against the appellant, which is very much essential under section 19 of the P.C. Act and that the sanction order (Ext.8) is a defective one which was mechanically prepared without any application of mind.”
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