Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the criminal proceedings filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) under the Prevention of Corruption Act against P. Manjunath, the In-Charge Sub-Registrar at Hosadurga.
The order was issued two months following an alleged demand for bribes to register a deed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna emphasised that Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act only has a “pre-paid” concept to set a trap for accused officials to demand and accept bribes before the work is done, but there is no post-paid rule under the same provision for work that has already been done.
A mortgage deed was registered by petitioner Manjunath on February 24, 2022, and it was released on the same day.
The complaint was filed 14 days after the document’s release. The first trap was set on March 2, 2022, when no work was pending with the petitioner, but it didn’t work. After two months following the document’s registration, the ACB set up a second trap by setting Rs. 4,000 on the petitioner’s table while he wasn’t in the office.
The petitioner’s counsel, K. Satish, said that both the first and second trap attempts were unsuccessful. He argued that neither bribe is demanded nor accepted.
