The Supreme Court will examine whether those who conducted a sting operation to expose corruption or graft could themselves be charged with offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
A Bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph on Monday agreed to examine this issue while admitting two special leave petitions (SLP) filed by Rajat Prasad and Arvind Vijaymohan, who had, in a sting operation, videorecorded Dilip Singh Judev, then Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, receiving illegal gratification in the run-up to the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections in 2003.
The SLPs were directed against a May 30, 2008 Delhi High Court judgment refusing to discharge them from a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Supreme Court earlier stayed the proceedings against the two petitioners.
On Monday senior counsel Harish Salve and P.S. Narasimha and counsel Haris Beeran, appearing for the petitioners, said important questions of law were involved in these SLPs. The CBI alleged that in July 2003, Amit Jogi, son of the former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, hatched a criminal conspiracy with the petitioners to secretly video-record Mr. Judev, in the act of receiving illegal gratification, in a bid to disgrace him just prior to the elections. The sting operation was later telecast on TV channels. The motive was to derive political mileage in favour of Mr. Ajit Jogi. As the High Court refused to discharge them, the petitioners moved the Supreme Court.
They said the SLPs raised important questions: Can a person who is party to a sting operation, undertaken to expose bribery and corruption by public servant, be said to be liable under Section 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with 120B of the Indian Penal Code? Can such a sting operation be equated with “abetting in the commission of an offence by a public servant?” Could the petitioners, in the facts and circumstances of the case, be charged with offences under Section 12 of the Act read with 120B of IPC?
There was no overt act or direct documentary/oral evidence to connect the petitioners with the alleged crime or of their being a beneficiary. There was no basis in law to proceed against them as the charge against them was entirely groundless, the SLPs said.
