Summary
Three Punjab Roadways conductors were convicted under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act for using already-sold and value-enhanced tickets. Of fifteen accused, every manager, inspector and other conductor was acquitted, but the High Court confirmed the conviction of these three on the evidence of two depot officials and an inspection committee. The Supreme Court acquitted them. The seized tickets were never sealed; the officials who compared them with way-bills saw them only at the police station and could not connect them to any bus or conductor; the committee could not say which tickets came from whom. The enquiry report was only a photocopy, and the State, having obtained leave to lead secondary evidence under Section 65 of the Evidence Act, never proved the existence and loss of the original. There was no substratum for the prosecution case.
Issues
- Whether a conviction could rest on seized tickets that were never sealed, were not identified by any recovery witness, and could not be connected to the particular buses or conductors.
- Whether a photocopy of the enquiry report could be relied on when the prosecution, after obtaining leave to lead secondary evidence under Section 65 of the Evidence Act, led no evidence of the existence and loss of the original.
- Whether, in the absence of any passenger evidence of sale of such tickets, the case went beyond mere possession.
Provisions considered
- Section 65, Indian Evidence Act, 1872The trial court allowed the prosecution's application to lead secondary evidence of the enquiry report and the complainant's affidavit subject to proof of the existence and loss of the originals. No such evidence was ever led, and the investigating officer did not know whether the originals were lost, so the photocopy marked as Ext. PW-20/A could not be relied on. (¶¶ 6, 12, 13)
- Sections 409, 420, 467, 471, 474 and 477-A read with Section 109, and Section 120-B, Indian Penal Code, 1860The offences for which the conductors were convicted; set aside for want of any legally admissible evidence connecting them to the seized tickets. (¶¶ 1, 13, 17)
- Sections 7 and 13(1)(d), Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988Convictions under these sections, carrying three years' rigorous imprisonment, were set aside along with the IPC convictions on the same finding of no evidence. (¶¶ 1, 17)
- Section 313, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973The appellants argued that the alleged excess cash found at inspection was neither proved nor put to the accused under Section 313 and so could not be read against them; the Court found it unnecessary to examine the case law since there was no evidence at all. (¶¶ 6, 14)
Held
- PW-8 and PW-15, the depot officials who compared the tickets with the way-bills, admitted in cross-examination that the documents were shown to them unsealed at the police station, that they were not present at any recovery, that they did not know which tickets related to which bus or conductor, and that the ticket numbers issued by the head office were not supplied for comparison. The High Court could not have recorded a conviction on their evidence. (¶¶ 9, 10, 11)
- The inspection committee members (PW-20 to PW-22) stated that they could not identify from which accused they had taken which ticket and could not give the conductors' names, bus numbers or ticket numbers. They thus failed to prove that the recovery was validly made, and the enquiry report, being an unproved photocopy, was not a piece of evidence, as even the High Court had recorded. (¶¶ 12, 13)
- Once the recovery was not shown to have been made in accordance with law and the tickets could not be connected to the three buses and their conductors, it was unsafe to rely on them; with the enquiry report also unproved there was a complete vacuum of substratum for the prosecution case, making it unnecessary to consider the authorities cited. (¶¶ 13, 14)
Result
Appeals allowed; the judgments of the High Court and the trial court qua the appellants set aside and the appellants acquitted of all charges. They being on bail, their bail bonds stand discharged.