The Supreme Court has said courts should not hesitate in denying liberty to the accused for ensuring a corruption-free society.
A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan accordingly upheld the dismissal of a public official's anticipatory bail in a corruption case. The court lamented that corruption had in it "very dangerous potentialities".
Further, it opined an "over solicitous homage to the accused's liberty can, sometimes, defeat the cause of public justice".
The top court was hearing the plea of a public servant against an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court denying him the relief.
The high court rejected his anticipatory bail in a case filed against him in Patiala under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
The top court said the accused was alleged to have demanded illegal gratification over an audit in the development work in a gram panchayat.
"If even a fraction of what was the vox pupuli about the magnitude of corruption to be true, then it would not be far removed from the truth, that it is the rampant corruption indulged in with impunity by highly placed persons that has led to economic unrest in this country," the bench's March 3 order said.
If one was asked to name a sole factor that effectively arrested the progress of our society to prosperity, it was corruption, it added.
The court said the menace of the "corrupt elements at the higher echelons of the government and political parties" was far greater than even the hired assassins attacking its law and order in the society of a developing country.
It said presumption of innocence, by itself, couldn't be the sole consideration for the grant of anticipatory bail.
The bench said presumption of innocence was a factor the court needed to be mindful of when considering the plea for anticipatory bail but the salutary rule was to balance the cause of the accused and the cause of public justice.
"If liberty is to be denied to an accused to ensure corruption-free society, then the courts should not hesitate in denying such liberty," it added.
While referring to the provisions of the 1988 Act, the bench said a mere demand or solicitation by a public servant amounted to commission of an offence under Section 7 of the Act.
Observing Section 7 of the Act spoke of the "attempt" to obtain a bribe as being in itself an offence, the bench said the actual exchange of the bribe was not an essential requirement to be prosecuted under the 1988 law.
"Further, those public servants, who do not take a bribe directly, but, through middlemen or touts, and those who take valuable things from a person with whom they have or are likely to have official dealings, are also punishable as per Sections 10 and 11 of the Act 1988 respectively," it said.
A public servant, the court said, could be stated to have committed criminal misconduct, if he habitually accepted or obtained or agreeed to accept or attempted to obtain from any person for himself or for any other person any gratification other than the legal remuneration as a motive or reward such as mentioned in Section 7 of the law.
Anticipatory bail could be granted only in exceptional circumstances in which the court was of prima facie view that the applicant was falsely enroped in the crime or the allegations were politically motivated or were frivolous, the court added.
"Avarice is a common frailty of mankind and Robert Walpole's famous pronouncement that all men have their price, notwithstanding the unsavoury cynicism that it suggests, is not very far from truth," the order said.
The bench added, "In more recent years, Romain Rolland lamented that France fell because there was corruption without indignation." While dismissing the petition, the bench said it was convinced that the high court rightly denied anticipatory bail to the petitioner but clarified in case the official sought regular bail, it would be considered on merits without being influenced by the observations made in its order.
"The principles governing grant of anticipatory bail are distinct and different from the principles as regards the grant of regular bail. The considerations are different. This should be kept in mind if at all a regular bail application is filed by the petitioner," the bench said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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