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Kanchan Kumar vs The State of Bihar

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 955Decided 14 Sept 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 1562 of 2022
B.R. Gavai · Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha

Background

The appellant, a Bihar State Financial Corporation officer, faced a 1987 complaint alleging he owned assets disproportionate to his known income; that inquiry found the allegation false. Nevertheless, an FIR was registered against him in 2000 under the Prevention of Corruption Act for the same allegation covering 1974-1988, and a charge-sheet was finally filed in 2007, alleging he had amassed Rs. 2,22,825 more than his known income. Both the Special Judge (Vigilance) and the Patna High Court refused to discharge him from the case, holding that examining his objections to the calculations would require an impermissible "roving inquiry," so he appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that scrutinizing glaring, self-evident inconsistencies in the prosecution's own charge-sheet at the discharge stage is not a "roving inquiry" but a proper application of the settled test under Section 227 CrPC (as laid down in Union of India v. Prafulla Kumar Samal and later cases). Examining just three disputed expenditure items, the Court found the prosecution had wrongly counted Rs. 55,000 instead of the appellant's actual bank balance of Rs. 11,998, double-counted a loan repayment already deducted from his salary, and included the value of articles seized twelve years after the relevant check period with no link to that period, reducing the alleged expenditure from Rs. 5,24,386 to Rs. 2,69,355, which was actually less than his income of Rs. 3,01,561. Finding no prima facie case, and noting the appellant (now 72, retired since 2010) had faced this prosecution for over two decades since the original 1987 complaint, the Court allowed the appeal and discharged him.

Lesson Learnt

At the discharge stage in a criminal trial, courts are not merely rubber stamps for the prosecution. They must sift through and reconcile obvious inconsistencies in the prosecution's own evidence, and doing so is not the same as an impermissible "roving inquiry" into the merits of the trial.

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

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