2009 (2) TMI 870

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....e on 28.12.1971. He was convicted for offence punishable under Section 5(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 (in short the `Act') and was sentenced to under minimum sentence of one year and was directed to pay a fine of ₹ 2,50,000/-. The only point which was examined by the High Court was whether the respondent could be convicted for acquisition of wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income prior to 1964 i.e. from the date of inception of service on 29.5.1944 till the date of raid under Section 5(1)(e) which came into force only on 18.12.1964. The High Court was of the view that any acquisition of wealth said to be disproportionate to his known sources of income prior to 1964 could not be taken into account....

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....We agree with the learned counsel that the Act has no retrospective operation. We are unable to agree however that to take into consideration the pecuniary resources or property in the possession of the accused or any other person on his behalf which are acquired before the date of the Act is in any way giving the Act a retrospective operation. 13. A statute cannot be said to be retrospective `because a part of the requisites for its actions is drawn from a time antecedent to its passing? (Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 11th Edn., p. 211; see also State of Bombay v. Vishnu Ramchandran). Notice must be taken in this connection of a suggestion made by the learned counsel that in effect sub-section 3 of Section 5 creates a new offenc....

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....ant in the discharge of his official duty is however unsound. The sub-section does nothing of the kind. It merely prescribes a rule of evidence for the purpose of proving the offence of criminal misconduct as defined in Section 5(1) for which an accused person is already under trial. It was so held by this Court in C.D.S. Swamy v. State and again in Surajpal Singh v. State of U.P.. It is only when a trial has commenced for criminal misconduct by doing one or more of the acts mentioned in clauses a, b, c and d of Section 5(1) that sub-section 3 can come into operation. When there is such a trial, which necessarily must be in respect of acts committed after the Prevention of Corruption Act came into force, sub-section 3 places in the hands of....