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Deputy Superintendent of Police v. Ashoo Surendranath Tewari

Criminal Appeal · 2020 INSC 537Decided 8 Sept 2020
Criminal Appeal No. 575 of 2020
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice Navin Sinha · Justice Indira Banerjee

Background

The appellant, a SIDBI official, was accused in a CBI case after a bank employee (since absconding) fraudulently diverted roughly Rs.1.64 crore meant for a vendor's RTGS payments, with the appellant alleged to have forwarded the fraudulent account details and signed the resulting cheques. While criminal proceedings were pending, the Central Vigilance Commission conducted its own detailed inquiry into the same facts and concluded the appellant was himself a victim of the fraud rather than a participant, recommending against sanctioning his prosecution; the High Court nonetheless declined to discharge him from the criminal case.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that where a departmental/vigilance body has exonerated a person on the merits, not on a mere technicality, after examining the very same facts at issue in a parallel criminal case, continuing the criminal prosecution on identical facts becomes unsustainable, since the standard of proof in a criminal trial is far higher than in a departmental inquiry. Reviewing the CVC's detailed findings (that the appellant had, in fact, acted diligently and even helped freeze an account to limit the fraud's damage), the Court found the chances of a criminal conviction "bleak," set aside the High Court and Special Judge's orders, and discharged the appellant from the case.

Lesson Learnt

If a person facing a criminal case is cleared on the merits by a departmental or vigilance inquiry into the exact same facts, courts can treat continued criminal prosecution as an abuse of process and discharge the accused, rather than making them face a trial the evidence no longer supports.

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

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