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State Through Lokayukta Police, Raichur v. C.N. Manjunath

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 1140 of 2016)Decided 22 Nov 2016
Criminal Appeal No. 1140 of 2016
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

Licensed surveyors under Section 18A of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 prepare official survey sketches used to update government land records. Different Single Judge Benches of the Karnataka High Court had taken conflicting views on whether such licensed surveyors count as "public servants" for the purposes of anti-corruption prosecutions, so the question was referred to a Division Bench, which held that they are public servants. These appeals arose from that conflict, including one case (the lead appeal, No. 1140/2016) where a Single Judge had taken the opposite view.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that licensed surveyors are indeed "public servants" within the meaning of Section 2(c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, because they perform a statutory duty of preparing survey sketches that directly affects official revenue records: work that was previously done by government surveyors and was only outsourced to licensees due to workload. The Court noted that their qualifications, training, fees, jurisdiction and even cancellation of license are all controlled by the State Government, meaning they are bound by the terms of a government-issued license rather than functioning as ordinary private contractors. Agreeing fully with the Division Bench's reasoning, the Court held this satisfies the "public duty" test under Section 2(b) of the Act. Consequently, Criminal Appeal No. 89 of 2017 and Criminal Appeal Nos. 113-114 of 2017 (filed against the Division Bench ruling) were dismissed, while Criminal Appeal No. 1140 of 2016 (against the contrary Single Judge view) was allowed.

Lesson Learnt

A person need not be a direct government employee to be prosecuted as a "public servant" under anti-corruption law: if a license-holder performs a statutorily assigned public duty (like preparing official land records) under close government control, they can be held to the same anti-corruption standards as a government employee.

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

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