Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: The High Court has overturned the 2016 conviction of Income Tax Officer C.V. Narayana Reddy in a 2009 CBI bribery trap case, ruling that the prosecution failed to establish the essential ingredient of demand for illegal gratification.
Reddy, who was serving as Income Tax Officer in Ward 12, Panaji, had been found guilty by the North Goa Sessions Court in October 2016 for allegedly seeking and accepting a bribe from the managing partner of a cruise company during scrutiny of the firm’s 2007–08 income tax return. He was sentenced to two years’ simple imprisonment under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and subsequently appealed the verdict.
Before the High Court, Reddy’s advocate Rohan Desai argued that the prosecution’s account of the alleged bribe demand—its timing, amount, and purported repetitions during verification and at the trap—was marred by contradictions, omissions, and later “improvements,” rendering it unreliable. He further submitted that the trial court had drawn unwarranted inferences about Reddy’s presence with the complainant at a hotel, instead of grounding its conclusions on concrete proof of demand, and had improperly invoked the statutory presumption without first establishing the necessary foundational facts.
Agreeing that the prosecution failed to prove demand beyond reasonable doubt, and reiterating that recovery of tainted money alone cannot substitute for such proof, the High Court set aside Reddy’s conviction and the October 24, 2016 sentence.
