VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

932 DECISION - 523
paid to him by a private party, but he sought to explain that it was an
amount otherwise payable to him and hence it was no gratification at
all.
Once the prosecution established that gratification in any form
- cash or kind - had been paid or accepted by a public servant, the
court is under a legal compulsion to presume that the said gratification
was paid or accepted as a motive or reward to do (or forbear from
doing) any official act. The premise to be established on the facts for
drawing the presumption is that there was payment or acceptance of
gratification. Once the said premise is established, the inference to
be drawn is that the said gratification was accepted “as motive or
reward” for doing or forbearing to do any official act. So the word
‘gratification’ need not be stretched to mean reward because reward
is the outcome of the presumption which the court has to draw on
the factual premise that there was payment of gratification. This will
again be fortified by looking at the collocation of two expressions
adjacent to each other like “gratification or any valuable thing”. If
acceptance of any valuable thing can help to draw the presumption
that it was accepted as motive or reward for doing or forbearing to do an
official act, the word ‘gratification’ must be treated in the context to mean
any payment for giving satisfaction to the public servant who received it.
The Supreme Court repelled the contention of the appellant that
prosecution has a further duty to prove beyond the fact that the complainant
had paid the demanded money to him, for enabling it to lay the hand on the
legal presumption employed in the Prevention of Corruption Act.
(523)
(A) P.C. Act, 1988 — Secs. 7, 13(1)(d)
(B) Trap — appreciation of evidence
(C) Trap — complainant, accompanying witness turning
hostile