Brief Facts
- That the Appellant who was charged with facilitating the issuance of a second passport a person, who already possessed an Indian passport. Two other employees at the Passport Office were also implicated in facilitating the illegal issuance of the second passport. However, these two were acquitted and the CBI did not challenge the same.
- That the second passport was returned to the Passport Office, where it was illegally obtained by the Appellant through the involvement of two other accused. A demand for Rs. 5,000 was allegedly made by the Appellant to hand over the passport, which was refused, leading the appellant to return the passport to the office by registered post.
- During the trial, the appellant was convicted u/s 420 of the IPC and Sec. 12(1)(b) and 12(2) of the Passport Act, 1967 and upheld by the High Court. However, the High Court further acquitted two other convicts, including the person in whose name the passport was issued and thus, the Appellant remained the sole convict.
- The Appellant challenged the concurrent conviction and sentence of one-year rigorous imprisonment for each offence.
Issues
- Whether the Court can convict one accused and acquit other when there is similar or identical evidence pitted against them?
Held
- Appeal was allowed and the conviction was set aside.
- Supreme Court has held that the prosecution had failed to place on record any evidence to prove that appellant had any previous knowledge of accused No.1 was already possessing a passport. In the absence of any cogent evidence placed in this regard and accused Nos. 1 and 3 to 5 having been acquitted of the offences alleged, the conviction and order of sentence imposed against the appellant alone cannot be sustained or in other words it has to be held that prosecution had failed to prove the guilt of the appellant beyond reasonable doubt.
- That the Supreme Court placed reliance of the judgment of “Javed Shaukat Ali Qureshi v State of Gujarat reported in 2023 INSC 829” and has held that Court cannot convict one accused while acquitting others when the evidence against them is similar or identical. Principle of parity was cited as a reason for the appellant’s acquittal.
Relevant Para Nos.
- 10, 15, 16