Vasant Rao Guhe VERSUS State of Madhya Pradesh

Supreme Court of India (Full Bench (FB)- Three Judge)

Appeal (Crl.), 1279 of 2017, Judgment Date: Aug 09, 2017

• Trial Court on the two major heads of income i.e. pay and agricultural earnings, the learned Trial Court not only of its own embarked on an inquiry to ascertain and compute the figures, it wholly resorted to inferences in calculating the pay for the periods omitted by the prosecution as well as in fixing 60% expenditure from pay towards household needs. Its assessment of agricultural income of the appellant to say the least is also wholly presumptive in absence of any basis whatsoever in support thereof. This is noticeably in the face of the admission of the prosecution that while levelling the charge against the appellant of acquisition of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, it had not accounted for his income from pay vis-à-vis the periods omitted as well as from agricultural earnings. The figures ultimately arrived at by the Trial Court are thus patently different from those mentioned in the charge framed against the appellant and on which he was put on trial. In other words, the appellant was convicted by the Trial Court on a charge different from the one framed against him and that too on the basis of calculations made by it by applying inferences and guess works.
•  In essence, thus the High Court fell in error in the lines similar to that of the Trial Court, the only variation in approach being reduction in the percentage of expenditure in household exigencies and investments in agricultural yields. The vitiating infirmity of speculative assumptions in favour of the prosecution and against the appellant therefore afflicted its eventual determination as well. 
• Admittedly, having regard to the ultimate figures as calculated by the Courts below, the charge has undergone a metamorphosis. This assumes immense significance in view of the fact that no fresh charge had been framed on the allegations for which the appellant was eventually convicted and sentenced. Any adverse inference prejudicial to the appellant was thus not available in law, he not having been confronted with the altered imputations. To reiterate, the charge for which the appellant finally has been convicted wears a new complexion different from the one with which he had been arraigned at the initiation of the trial. The appellant thus for all practical purposes was subjected to a trial involving fleeting frames of accusations of which he was denied prior notice. This is clearly opposed to the fundamental  precepts of a criminal prosecution.
•  A person cannot be subjected to a criminal prosecution either for a charge which is amorphous and transitory and further on evidence that is conjectural or hypothetical. The appellant in the determinations before the Courts below has been subjected to a trial in which both the charges and evidence on aspects with vital bearing thereon lacked certitude, precision and unambiguity. 
• From the design and purport of clause (e) of sub-clause (1) to Section 13, it is apparent that the primary burden to bring home the charge of criminal misconduct thereunder would be indubitably on the prosecution to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the public servant either himself or through anyone else had at any time during the period of his office been in possession of pecuniary resources or property disproportionate to his known sources of income and it is only on the discharge of such burden by the prosecution, if he fails to satisfactorily account for the same, he would be in law held guilty of such offence. In other words, in case the prosecution fails to prove that the public servant either by himself or through anyone else had at any time during the period of his office been in possession of pecuniary resources or property disproportionate to his known sources of income, he would not be required in law to offer any explanation to satisfactorily account therefor. A public servant facing such charge, cannot be comprehended to 16 furnish any explanation in absence of the proof of the allegation of being in possession by himself or through someone else, pecuniary resources or property disproportionate to his known sources of income. 
• The prosecution to succeed in a criminal trial has to pitch its case beyond all reasonable doubt and lodge it in the realm of “must be true” category and not rest contended by leaving it in the domain of “may be true”. 
• We are thus left unpersuaded by the charge laid by the prosecution and the adjudications undertaken  by the Courts below. The conviction and sentence, thus is set aside. The appeal is allowed. 

Vasant Rao Guhe VERSUS State of Madhya Pradesh