The prosecution’s case was that the officer collected bribes not directly but through subordinates who invoked his name. The Supreme Court held that this structure, far from making conviction easier, demanded closer scrutiny: it must be proved that the intermediary acted for the accused and that the demand was traceable to him, and the mere receipt of money by a middleman cannot fasten guilt on the public servant. With the case resting largely on approvers whose word lacked independent corroboration, the Court acquitted the officer in both prosecutions.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has acquitted a former Divisional Security Commissioner of the Railway Protection Force, convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 of obtaining illegal gratification through intermediaries from personnel seeking transfers and postings, holding that the receipt of money by an intermediary does not by itself prove that the public servant demanded or accepted it [Bharat Raj Meena v. Central Bureau of Investigation].
A Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, in a judgment authored by Justice Kotiswar Singh, allowed both appeals and acquitted the appellant of all charges.
The background
The prosecution arose from a CBI anti-corruption case registered in 2005, alleging that the appellant, while serving as Divisional Security Commissioner at Palakkad, had evolved a system under which Railway Protection Force personnel seeking favourable transfers, postings or retentions were required to pay illegal gratification, collected not directly by him but through subordinate officials acting as conduits who represented that they had access to him. The investigation described twelve instances of gratification, ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 13,000, collected between April and August 2005.
Two prosecutions were before the Court. In one, the Special CBI Judge, Ernakulam had convicted the appellant under Sections 7 and 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Act on the complaint of one witness; in the other, he was convicted in respect of transactions involving three others. The Kerala High Court had affirmed the convictions in 2024, though in the second case it upheld the conviction as to only one of the transactions. The appellant carried both matters to the Supreme Court.
Liability through intermediaries
The Court accepted that the Act does reach gratification routed through a third person; a public servant cannot escape liability merely by ensuring that the money passes through someone else’s hands. But it laid down the condition on which such liability rests:
“…before criminal liability can be fastened upon the public servant, the prosecution must establish by reliable evidence that the intermediary was acting under the authority, direction or for the benefit of the accused and that the demand itself was attributable to the accused. Mere receipt of money by a third person cannot automatically result in criminal liability being imputed to a public servant.”
Drawing on the Constitution Bench decision in Neeraj Dutta v. State (NCT of Delhi), the Court emphasised the gap between money collected by an intermediary in the name of a public servant and proof that the public servant obtained or accepted that money. The chain, it observed, must be shown to reach the accused; it cannot be presumed to do so simply because the intermediary invoked his name.
The caution on approver evidence
A central feature of the case was that the prosecution relied substantially on the testimony of persons originally arraigned as accused and later granted pardon, that is, approvers. The Court restated the settled law: an accomplice is a competent witness and a conviction on uncorroborated accomplice testimony is not illegal, but a rule of prudence requires that such testimony be corroborated in material particulars by independent evidence connecting the accused to the offence, because an approver has a powerful incentive to minimise his own role and shift blame.
Those principles, the Court held, assume particular force in corruption cases proved through intermediaries who were themselves participants, and it drew a sharp distinction between admissibility and credibility:
“That the evidence of an approver, or of a witness who claims to have paid a bribe, is admissible in law, does not by itself, answer the distinct question of whether such evidence is credible and safe to act upon.”
Why the convictions fell
Applying these standards, the Court found the evidence in each surviving transaction wanting. In the first prosecution, it found it queer that the intermediary approver had himself been caught taking money and was initially an accused, and that the account required the money to be redirected through an intermediary rather than paid directly; it found elements of reasonable doubt and no independent corroboration linking the money to the appellant. In the second, the foundational fact of a demand traceable to the appellant was not established beyond the intermediary’s own assertion, and the presumption under Section 20 of the Act could not be invoked, since that presumption operates only once the foundational facts of demand and acceptance by the accused are proved, not to supply their absence.
What remained, the Court held, was in substance the oral testimony of approvers without the independent corroboration that the rule of prudence requires. Holding that the charges had not been proved with the definitiveness that proof beyond reasonable doubt demands, the Court acquitted the appellant in both appeals, discharged his bail bonds and directed refund of any fine deposited. It recorded, but found it unnecessary to decide, the appellant’s contentions that the prosecution was the product of a conspiracy connected to a rival’s posting and that the sanction to prosecute was vitiated.
Why it matters
Corruption is often organised precisely so that the public servant never touches the money, and the law has adapted to that reality: the Act reaches gratification routed through intermediaries, and a Constitution Bench has confirmed that demand and acceptance can be proved by direct or circumstantial evidence. This judgment does not retreat from that. What it insists on is that the intermediary structure not become a shortcut that dispenses with proof. The prosecution must still connect the money to the accused, by showing the intermediary acted for him and that the demand was his; an invocation of the officer’s name by a middleman is not that connection.
The evidentiary caution is the durable part of the ruling. Bribery-through-conduit cases frequently depend on the conduits themselves, turned approvers in exchange for pardon, and the Court’s reminder that such testimony is admissible but not, for that reason, credible, and needs independent corroboration connecting the accused, is a discipline that cuts across every such prosecution. So too is the clarification on Section 20: the statutory presumption is a consequence that follows once the foundational facts are proved, not a device that manufactures those facts where the evidence of demand and acceptance is itself missing.
The acquittal should not be read as a comment on whether corruption of the kind alleged occurs; it is a finding that these particular charges, on this particular evidence, were not proved to the criminal standard. The Court expressly declined to go into the conspiracy and sanction arguments, having decided the matter on the insufficiency of proof. For investigating agencies, the practical lesson is that in intermediary-and-approver cases the corroborative link to the accused has to be built into the investigation, because the courts will not presume it; for the accused, it is a reaffirmation that the presumption of innocence is not displaced by suspicion, however strong, unattended by proof.
Case Title: Bharat Raj Meena v. Central Bureau of Investigation [Criminal Appeal Nos. 4732 and 4733 of 2024]
Bench: Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: September 16, 2026 | Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 999
Status: Both appeals allowed. Appellant acquitted of all charges; bail bonds discharged and fine to be refunded. Conspiracy and sanction contentions left undecided.