Supreme Court: the Section 20 PC Act presumption arises only after demand and acceptance are proved

The Supreme Court acquitted a former Railway Protection Force officer who had been convicted in two CBI prosecutions under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The CBI registered its case in 2005, alleging that while posted in Palakkad he demanded and obtained bribes, through subordinates acting as intermediaries, from RPF personnel seeking transfers and postings. The Court restated the law laid down by the Constitution Bench in Neeraj Dutta v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi). Proof of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification is the gravamen of offences under Sections 7 and 13.

Such proof may come from direct or circumstantial evidence. The presumption under Section 20 does not relieve the prosecution of its primary burden and operates only after the prosecution proves the foundational facts that the accused accepted or obtained gratification. On the evidence, the Court found that nothing was recovered from the officer, his home or his office. One key witness was an approver, and the rest was the uncorroborated word of interested witnesses, contradicted on the only available date by the officer's own contemporaneous diary.

Since the foundational facts were not proved, the presumption did not arise, and reasonable doubts remained. Both appeals were allowed, his bail bonds were discharged, and any fine deposited was ordered to be refunded.