Supreme Court Revives Corruption FIR Against PSI, Holds Directing Bribe Through Subordinates Is an Offence Under PC Act
A division bench restores an FIR quashed by the Karnataka High Court, holding that directing a complainant to pay subordinates falls within Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with Explanation 2.
The Supreme Court has set aside a Karnataka High Court order that quashed an FIR against a Police Sub-Inspector accused of directing a complainant to pay illegal gratification to his subordinate police officials. A division bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, deciding the appeal filed by the State through the Karnataka Lokayukta Police, held that the High Court had exceeded its quashing jurisdiction by conducting what amounted to a mini-trial. The Court further held that Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, read with Explanation 2, expressly covers attempts to obtain an undue advantage for another person through subordinates, and that a veiled direction to a complainant to “do something for those boys” prima facie satisfies that ingredient. The FIR and all proceedings stand revived.
How the Dispute Reached the Court
The respondent, Sri K. Rangayya, was serving as a Police Sub-Inspector at Siruguppa Police Station, Bellary District, Karnataka. On 15 March 2023, he and other police officials approached the complainant near a temple, accused him of illegally selling ration rice, and seized his two-wheeler and mobile phone. The complainant was directed to report to the police station, where a case was registered against him under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
Between 15 March 2023 and 1 June 2023, the complainant visited the police station repeatedly seeking return of his seized property. On 28 May 2023, Rangayya told him he had spoken to one Mohammed Ali (Accused No. 3), a private individual, about the matter. Mohammed Ali then telephoned the complainant and demanded Rs. 50,000 on behalf of and on the instructions of Rangayya.
On 1 June 2023, Rangayya directed Constable Kashinath (Accused No. 2) to release the two-wheeler, and simultaneously told the complainant that as nothing had been done for him, the complainant should at least do something for the other police officials. Kashinath thereafter demanded Rs. 5,000, which was negotiated down to Rs. 3,000 plus a penalty of Rs. 500.
Unwilling to pay, the complainant filed a complaint on 3 June 2023 before the Karnataka Lokayukta Police, Bellary. An FIR bearing Crime No. 04/2023 was registered under Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Rangayya (Accused No. 1), Kashinath (Accused No. 2), and Mohammed Ali (Accused No. 3). Two trap operations were subsequently arranged — on 4 June 2023 and 9 June 2023 — but Rangayya was absent on both occasions. On 9 June 2023, the bribe amount was recovered from a fourth accused, Venkatesh, at Rangayya's office.
Rangayya filed Writ Petition No. 104236/2023 before the High Court of Karnataka at Dharwad seeking quashing of the FIR. On 23 January 2024, the High Court allowed the petition and quashed the FIR against him, holding that neither demand nor acceptance of illegal gratification by Rangayya personally was made out on the face of the allegations. The State appealed to the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 5245 of 2025.
The High Court's Error: A Mini-Trial at the Threshold Stage
The Court identified the central flaw in the High Court's approach as a fundamental overreach of quashing jurisdiction. At the stage of considering a petition to quash an FIR, the sole inquiry is whether the allegations, taken at face value and accepted as true, prima facie disclose the commission of a cognizable offence. Courts are not permitted to examine the merits of allegations, evaluate evidence, assess probabilities, or weigh the credibility of witnesses at that stage.
The High Court, the Court found, had done precisely that. Rather than confining itself to the contents of the FIR, it examined the outcome of the trap proceedings, the absence of personal recovery from Rangayya, the result of the phenolphthalein test, and the findings of a departmental enquiry against some of the accused. All of these are matters of evidence to be evaluated at trial. By undertaking that examination, the High Court had in effect conducted a mini-trial, which is fundamentally contrary to settled principles governing the exercise of quashing jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and Article 226 of the Constitution.
Section 7(a) PC Act: Scope of Demand Through Subordinates
The Court then examined the statutory architecture of Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 in detail. Section 7(a) punishes a public servant who obtains, accepts, or attempts to obtain an undue advantage with the intention to perform or cause performance of a public duty improperly or dishonestly, or to forbear from performing such duty, whether by himself or by another public servant.
Explanation 2 to Section 7 significantly enlarges this scope in two ways. First, Explanation 2(i) provides that the expressions “obtains,” “accepts,” or “attempts to obtain” cover cases where a public servant obtains or attempts to obtain an undue advantage not only for himself but also for another person, whether by abusing his position or by using personal influence over another public servant, or by any other corrupt or illegal means. Second, Explanation 2(ii) provides that it is immaterial whether the undue advantage is obtained directly or through a third party.
The Court reasoned that the beneficiary of the undue advantage need not be the charged public servant himself. The words “another person” in Explanation 2(i) carry no qualification — they encompass any person, whether or not a public servant. A senior official may therefore remain in the background, not personally receiving or even intending to receive any part of the illegal gratification, and yet be the main instrumentality through whom the undue advantage is obtained or arranged through subordinate public servants. Such conduct falls squarely within Section 7(a) read with Explanation 2.
Applying this to the facts, the Court held that the allegation that Rangayya directed the complainant to “do something for those boys” constituted, at the very minimum, an attempt to obtain an undue advantage for his subordinates — persons closely associated with him officially. That direction was immediately followed by a demand from Constable Kashinath for Rs. 5,000, which the Court found corroborated the causal nexus between Rangayya's instruction and the subsequent demand by his subordinate.
The Court also relied on its earlier decision in Devinder Kumar Bansal v. State of Punjab, (2025) 4 SCC 493, which had observed that mere demand or solicitation by a public servant amounts to commission of an offence under Section 7 of the PC Act, that the word “attempt” implies no more than a mere solicitation whether in implicit or explicit terms, and that actual exchange of a bribe is not an essential requirement for prosecution. Public servants who do not take a bribe directly but through middlemen are equally liable under the PC Act.
The Court held that the High Court had imported a requirement of a direct, personal, and express demand by the public servant himself — a standard not warranted by the broad statutory language of Section 7 read with Explanation 2. Permitting that interpretation to stand would create a loophole enabling senior officials to orchestrate the collection of illegal gratification through subordinates while maintaining personal deniability, thereby defeating the object of the PC Act and rendering Explanation 2 redundant.
Distinguishing the Three Post-Trial Judgments Relied Upon by the Respondent
Rangayya had relied on three Supreme Court decisions — K. Shanthamma v. State of Telangana, (2022) 4 SCC 574; Soundarajan v. State, (2023) 16 SCC 141; and Jagtar Singh v. State of Punjab, (2023) 19 SCC 498 — each of which had set aside convictions under Section 7 of the PC Act on the ground that demand and acceptance had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
The Court distinguished all three on a single decisive ground: each arose in the context of a completed criminal trial, where the court was required to evaluate whether the prosecution's evidence met the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt necessary to sustain a conviction. The present case was at the pre-trial stage, where no evidence had been led, no witnesses examined, and no charge sheet evaluated.
In K. Shanthamma, the conviction of a Commercial Tax Officer had been set aside after a full trial because the sole prosecution witness's evidence on demand was found unreliable due to improvements over prior statements and internal inconsistencies. The principles on reliability of evidence of demand and acceptance articulated there apply only when a court is evaluating evidence at trial to determine whether a charge has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. They have no application at the stage of quashing an FIR.
Similarly, Soundarajan and Jagtar Singh both involved post-conviction appeals where the prosecution had failed to prove demand beyond reasonable doubt at trial. The standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt applicable to sustaining a conviction cannot be transplanted to the threshold stage of considering whether an FIR should be quashed.
The Court also noted that in Jagtar Singh itself, the Court had observed that in the absence of complainant evidence, an inference of culpability under Section 7 may be drawn from circumstantial evidence. In the present case, the circumstantial evidence — including recorded telephonic conversations and the recovery of the bribe amount from a person closely connected with Rangayya — was material requiring examination at trial, not pre-emption at the quashing stage.
The Departmental Enquiry and the Mala Fide Plea
Rangayya had also relied on a departmental enquiry that exonerated Venkatesh (Accused No. 4) and G. Ramesh (Accused No. 5). The Court rejected this reliance on two grounds. First, the enquiry pertained to those two accused, not to Rangayya directly; the exoneration of subordinates in a departmental proceeding cannot operate as an exoneration of the principal accused in a criminal investigation. Second, the departmental enquiry order was passed on 12 August 2025 — after the High Court's order of 23 January 2024 — and was therefore not before the High Court at all.
On the mala fide plea, Rangayya had argued that the FIR was retaliatory, motivated by prior hostility arising from his refusal to invoke Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code in an earlier case and his filing of a charge sheet against the complainant under the Essential Commodities Act. The Court found no merit in this. Whether a complaint is motivated by mala fides is itself a matter of evidence and trial. The mere allegation of pre-existing hostility does not render the FIR allegations so inherently improbable or manifestly absurd as to justify quashing, particularly given the presence of recorded conversations between the complainant and Rangayya. The complainant's motive, if any, is a matter to be tested by the defence through cross-examination at trial.
Order
The Court allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment and order dated 23 January 2024 passed by the High Court of Karnataka at Dharwad in Writ Petition No. 104236 of 2023. FIR bearing Crime No. 04/2023 dated 3 June 2023, registered against Rangayya under Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and all proceedings arising therefrom, stand revived and restored. The trial court is directed to proceed in accordance with law.
The Court clarified that its observations are confined to the prima facie question of whether a cognizable offence is disclosed for the purpose of the quashing inquiry under Section 482 CrPC. They will have no bearing on the final determination of Rangayya's guilt or innocence, which is to be decided by the trial court upon evidence duly led and examined in accordance with law.