Karnataka High Court quashes corruption case against KIA customs official

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has quashed a corruption case against a customs superintendent posted at the Kempegowda International Airport here. 

Justice M Nagaprasanna noted that when the departmental inquiry had given clean chit to the officer, Attar Mohammed Shafiullah, on merit, no purpose would be served in continuing the criminal proceedings on the same set of facts. 

It was alleged that Shafiullah demanded a bribe of Rs 30,000 from S Muthukrishna, a traveller, to clear the commercial goods he had brought along while returning from Bangkok on March 1, 2018.

Muthukrishna claimed he went out after requesting the petitioner to give some time to draw money from the ATM and later filed the complaint upon his return. The CBI registered the FIR and filed a charge sheet against the officer for offences under IPC Section 120B as well as sections 7, 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. 

Shafiulla petitioned the high court against the CBI's actions, stating that the disciplinary proceedings initiated against him on the very allegations culminated on December 29, 2023, after the disciplinary authority accepted the report of the inquiry officer and closed the case against him. 

On the other hand, the CBI claimed that the petitioner did ask for a bribe from the complainant and the money was received by a co-accused, working as a customs inspector. The CBI further said that cognisance had been taken by the trial court in the case. 

Justice Nagaprasanna cited the Supreme Court judgement in the PS Rajya and Ashoo Surendranath Tiwari case, noting that if allegations in the departmental inquiry could not be proved on merit and the person is held to be innocent, criminal prosecution on the said facts cannot be permitted to be continued on the underlying principle of criminal trial needing higher standard of proof. 

"Exoneration of the petitioner, in the departmental inquiry, is not on technicalities, but on merits, as there was no evidence against the petitioner to drive home the charge. Therefore, in terms of the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the aforesaid judgments, in my considered view, the chances of the prosecution succeeding in the criminal trial being bleak, this court cannot permit continuance of such criminal trial, any further,” the court said.