Hyderabad: Nearly 25 years after being allegedly caught taking a ₹4,000 bribe, a roads and buildings (R&B) department employee from Warangal has been acquitted by the Telangana high court.The court set aside a 2007 verdict of the special court for ACB cases that had sentenced the employee to one year of rigorous imprisonment under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Delivering the judgment on Sept 19, Justice J Sreenivas Rao held that the ACB court had erred in convicting the employee on weak and unreliable evidence. The judge observed that “mere recovery of money from an accused does not establish guilt without corroborative proof of conscious acceptance, and courts must not infer criminal liability from assumptions or incomplete evidence.” The case dates back to a complaint by a contractor, who alleged that the employee demanded a ₹4,000 bribe for releasing a balance payment of ₹25,500 relating to the construction of a school building in Thattupally village in Warangal district. Acting on the complaint, ACB trapped and arrested the employee and later secured his conviction in 2007. However, during the trial, the contractor turned hostile and other witnesses examined by the ACB did not support the prosecution’s case. The high court said that the ACB judge had relied on a single witness, described as a “stock witness,” to convict the accused. Justice Rao further recorded that evidence on record suggested the money was actually received as supervisory charges linked to the ongoing construction work. The court also pointed out that the accused was not the competent authority to sanction pending bills. Moreover, the construction was incomplete at the time of the alleged bribe, and the contractor was paid the final amount only after completion of the work. Finding that the essential ingredients of demand and voluntary acceptance of a bribe were absent, the high court set aside the ACB court’s order and acquitted the accused.
