The Supreme Court has acquitted a public servant in a corruption case more than two decades old, in which a trap was laid over an alleged bribery demand, while flagging the “serious lacuna and impatience” of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the investigation.
The Court, in a verdict delivered on Wednesday (September 16, 2026) on his appeals challenging the May 2024 orders of the Kerala High Court that had affirmed his conviction and sentence by a special trial court, noted that “the trap was not permitted to run its full course” and that the CBI could not prove that the recovered “bribe” money was meant for him.
The investigation led to multiple final reports and several prosecutions, each founded on distinct alleged transactions of illegal gratification. It noted that the trial court had brushed aside the doubts raised by the appellant. “If the money was ultimately meant to reach the appellant, the investigating agency ought to have kept a watch on him and not merely on the person who was later examined as an approver and prosecution witness during the trial.
“It is surprising that the CBI started the investigation of a cognisable offence by way of verifying the complaint of bribery even before the formal FIR was lodged,” the Bench said. The Bench said that while the investigating agency could not be faulted for organising the trap in such an “extraordinarily speedy manner”, that could raise certain doubts. Taking into account the trial court’s own observations, the Bench said there were “certainly elements of doubt in the manner the trap was executed”, which the trial court ignored, and that the lapses raised reasonable doubt on the prosecution case. “It is relevant to consider the reason the trap was not permitted to run its full course as against the appellant,” the Bench said. It said the CBI’s “serious lacuna and impatience” in the investigation “would enure to the benefit of the appellant”.
It also noted that the CBI arranged the two independent trap witnesses only a short time before the trap was executed.
