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Dashrath v. The State of Maharashtra

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 654Decided 24 Apr 2025
Crl.A. No.-002120-002120 - 2025 (arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 13997 of 2024)
Justice Dipankar Datta · Justice Manmohan

Background

The appellant was convicted in 2004 for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs. 500 (from a larger demand) in exchange for updating land revenue records, and was sentenced under Sections 7 and 13(1)(d) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. His conviction was upheld by the Bombay High Court in 2024. Before the Supreme Court, he challenged the validity of the sanction to prosecute, the rank of the investigating officer, whether the bribe demand was properly proved, and asked, given his advanced age and the two-decade-plus delay, for the prison sentence to be waived under Article 142 of the Constitution.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court rejected all challenges to the conviction: the sanctioning authority had duly applied its mind, a valid 1989 Government Order authorised Police Inspectors to investigate PC Act offences, the bribe demand was proved through consistent witness testimony and the appellant's own candid answers, and the relationship of a seizure witness to the complainant did not taint his evidence. On sentencing, the Court held that Article 142 cannot be used to reduce a sentence below the statutory minimum prescribed by Parliament, distinguishing this from an earlier coordinate-bench order (H.P. Venkatesh) that had done so, which the Court declined to follow. However, considering the appellant's advanced age and the decades-long pendency, it reduced the sentence for the Section 7 offence to the statutory minimum of one year's imprisonment, while leaving the Section 13(1)(d) sentence unchanged, both to run concurrently.

Lesson Learnt

Courts cannot use their special constitutional powers to hand out a sentence below the minimum term that a criminal statute prescribes: that would amount to judges rewriting the law; but where such a minimum exists, judges retain discretion to impose exactly that minimum in deserving cases such as advanced age and long delay.

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

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