Voluminous evidence in graft cases leading to long pendency: SC

Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Flagging the issue of prosecuting agencies filing voluminous evidence and naming large number of witnesses in corruption cases, Supreme Court disapproved of the practice, saying it leads to protracted hearing and long pendency.While acquitting a person in a 33-year-old corruption case on the ground that CBI failed to prove that he received pecuniary advantage, a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran expressed concern over the agency naming a large number of unnecessary witnesses to prove the charge.

The court said voluminous documents filed by CBI are intimidating even to the court. "We cannot but notice that in corruption cases voluminous evidence is led, which is often intimidating to the court, especially since many aspects attempted to be led in evidence are way off the mark, in providing a substantiation of the allegation, or to bring home the guilt of the accused public servant," the bench said.The case pertains to a complaint filed by Assam veterinary department alleging that a loss of Rs 5.97 lakh was caused to the exchequer as payment was made to a fictitious firm for medicines which were never supplied. Seven persons were chargesheeted, of whom four were convicted and sentenced by a trial court and three acquitted.Three convicts filed an appeal before Gauhati high court. One of them, the accountant who passed the bill, was acquitted, but the petitioner, who was store in charge, and the other accused, storekeeper, were convicted under Section 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act. The petitioner then moved SC. Allowing his appeal, the bench set aside his conviction and noted that the prosecution in this case had examined 62 witnesses, which was of no avail as the HC referred to only nine of such witnesses.