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Bhima Razu Prasad v. State rep. by Deputy Superintendent of Police, CBI/SPE/ACU-II

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 180Decided 12 Mar 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 305 of 2021
Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar · Justice Vineet Saran

Background

The appellant, a public sector company regional manager, was investigated by the CBI for possessing assets disproportionate to his known income after a large sum of cash was seized from his house. To escape the charge, he arranged for two associates to falsely claim before the investigating agency that the seized cash actually belonged to one of them under a sham property-sale "escrow" arrangement, backed by a fabricated sale deed and accounting entries. When this fabrication was discovered, the trio were separately prosecuted and convicted for fabricating evidence; they argued their prosecution was barred because the law requires a complaint from a court (not a private/investigating agency) before someone can be tried for giving false evidence "in relation to" a court proceeding.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the procedural bar under Section 195(1)(b)(i) CrPC, which normally stops anyone except the concerned court from prosecuting offences like fabricating evidence or giving false statements connected to judicial proceedings, does not apply when the fabrication is directed at and caught by the investigating agency itself, before the matter ever reaches a trial court, and the agency itself registers the case promptly. Since the false escrow story and forged sale deed here were created to mislead the CBI during investigation (not the trial court), and the CBI detected and complained about it before the trial began, no separate court complaint was required. The Court upheld the concurrent conviction and sentence (already reduced by the High Court on account of age and trial delay), dismissing the appeals on both the point of law and the merits.

Lesson Learnt

Fabricating evidence to derail a criminal investigation is itself prosecutable by the investigating agency directly: an accused cannot escape liability for cooking up false defenses during investigation by relying on technical rules meant to protect the sanctity of court proceedings, if the fabrication never actually reached or influenced the court.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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