AIR 1956 BOMBAY 717 ::58 Bom LR 317 ::ILR (1956) Bom 489

Bombay High Court

Hon'ble Judge(s): Shah, Vyas , JJ

Prevention of Corruption Act (2 of 1947) , S.5(3)— S.5(3) does not create a separate offence - It is only a rule of evidence. 1952 Orissa 289 (AIR V 39), Dissented from. Section 5(3) does not create any offence. It does not speak of any specific, Individual act of a person or his attempt at any specific act, but refers to a state of his pecuniary position as contrasted with his known earnings, which might be a cumulative result of acts done by him, which might fall under S. 5(1). In enacting Sub-S. (3) of S. 5, the Legislature did not intend to create an offence, separate from the one created under Sub-S. (1), but intended to lay down a rule that if a person's pecuniary resources, as compared to his known or legitimate sources of income reached a point which was disproportionate to the said income, it shall be presumed, unless the person, concerned accounted satisfactorily for it, that he had acquired those pecuniary resources by the commission of an act or series of acts under S. 5(1). Possession of pecuniary resources disproportionate to the known sources of a person's income is not one particular act of a person, but is a consequence arising out of his habitual acceptance of bribes, in other words, a consequence of habitual commission of offences by him under S. 5(1). Acquisition of such a pecuniary position is not and cannot....