The High Court of Karnataka has acquitted a police inspector from a disproportionate assets case on finding that he in fact had more income than assets and expenditures contrary to the Lokayukta police’s chargesheet, which was “blindly” accepted by the trial court without proper appreciation of evidences.
Justice K. Natarajan passed the order while allowing a petition filed by B. Ramakrishna, a police inspector.
The Lokayukta police had filed chargesheet against him during 2009-2010 for allegedly possessing disproportionate income during the check period 1996-2008. He was raided when he was serving in Mahalakshmi Layout police station in Bengaluru.
The trial court, in its February 2019 verdict, had found the inspector guilty of possessing disproportionate assets and had sentenced him to four years imprisonment besides imposing a fine of ₹30 lakh on him.
“The trial court without any appreciation of evidence, has blindly accepted the report of the investigation officer and passed the judgment,” the High Court observed while setting aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the trial court.
The High Court found that the Lokayukta police had erroneously included the business income of the inspector’s wife, who had filed income tax returns separately on her income, to the assets and expenditure of the inspector. Also, the High Court found that Lokayukta police had made erroneous computation of certain investments and expenditure of the inspector.
On re-appreciating the evidences, the High Court found that the inspector had total income of around ₹31.35 lakh, which was around ₹10.5 lakh more than his total assets and liabilities of around ₹20.81 lakh during the check period.
When his income was in excess of his assets and liabilities, he could not have been prosecuted for possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, the High Court said.
Also, the High Court said that another factor favouring the inspector was that he was exonerated from the same charges in the departmental enquiry.
