The Supreme Court of India held that confiscation proceedings under the Bihar Special Courts Act do not automatically end when a public servant dies. Especially if assets stand in names of relatives who were also parties to proceedings.
The Supreme Court of India held that confiscation proceedings under the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009 (BSCA) do not automatically come to an end or get set aside when the primary accused public servant dies particularly where the assets in question are in the names of relatives or spouses who were also parties to the proceedings.
A Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh set-aside a High Court order that had quashed confiscation proceedings against Sudha Singh, the widow of a deceased government official, after her husband died while an appeal was pending.
The Supreme Court sent the appeals back to the High Court for adjudication on their merits.
Background
Two FIRs lodged in 2009 named Ravindra Prasad Singh, a government employee, for allegedly accumulating disproportionate assets totaling Rs.12,96,516 between 1975 and 2009.
A chargesheet under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 was filed on October 7, 2009.
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Notices under the BSCA were issued to the officer and his wife on August 17, 2012. On August 5, 2013, the Authorised Officer ordered confiscation of various movable and immovable properties, observing that the wife had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for assets recorded in her name in Patna and New Delhi.
Both Sudha Singh and her husband challenged the confiscation order in the High Court. While the appeal was pending, Ravindra Prasad Singh died on January 18, 2018.
The High Court allowed the appeal and set aside the confiscation order, reasoning that the BSCA lacked a mechanism to continue such proceedings after the public servant’s death.
The State of Bihar argued that the High Court’s conclusion was incorrect and not supported by the statute.
The State maintained that:
- Confiscation under the BSCA differs from attachment during trial; property can be confiscated when the owner cannot explain its lawful source.
- Confiscation proceedings are not inherently criminal in nature, as held in Yogendra Kumar Jaiswal v. State of Bihar (2016), so the general rule that criminal proceedings abate on the accused’s death does not automatically apply.
- The statute specifies only two circumstances for returning confiscated property: acquittal of the accused by the Special Court, or annulment/modification of the confiscation order by the High Court on merits.
Respondent’s (Sudha Singh’s) contention was that BSCA proceedings are not separable from the Prevention of Corruption Act, and in the absence of any adverse finding against her husband before his death, the presumption of innocence should stand. She also contended that, being a private citizen, proceedings under Section 13 of the BSCA could not proceed against her alone.
The Supreme Court distinguished “acquittal” from “abatement,” referring to Gurmail Singh v. State of U.P. (2022),
“Abatement means ‘the discontinuation of criminal proceedings before they are concluded in the normal course of litigation, as when the defendant dies’… it is not a comment on the merits of the matter.”
The Court stressed that the death of the officer did not automatically absolve the respondent because she was targeted for holding assets allegedly derived from illegal means.
On liability for non-public servants, the Bench cited P. Nallammal v. State (1999), noting that a relative who holds wealth at the public servant’s behest may be liable for abetment. It observed that Section 15 of the BSCA expressly allows for hearing “any other person” through whom property is held.
Regarding the statutory scheme of the BSCA, the Court said,
“The Act itself provides for the situations in which the money/property confiscated thereunder can be returned to the owner… They are: (a) modification or annulment of the confiscation order by the High Court or (b) acquittal by the Special Court. In other words, no other possibilities have been accounted for.”
The Bench also rejected the argument that the absence of a provision to substitute legal heirs was fatal, noting that the respondent had been put on notice from the outset of proceedings.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court should have decided the appeal on its merits instead of letting it lapse due to the public servant’s death.
The Court held,
“The death of such a person does not extinguish the fact that confiscation order has been made after hearing the parties,”
The Supreme Court therefore set aside the impugned High Court orders in this case and a related matter (involving the death of officer Naresh Paswan) and remitted the appeals to the High Court for fresh consideration.
Case Title: The State of Bihar Thr. Vigilance v. Sudha Singh (with connected matter)