The Supreme Court has ruled that proceedings for the confiscation of wealth acquired illegally by a public servant can be continued against the spouse or relatives even after the death of the accused.
The apex court passed the ruling while allowing appeals filed by the Bihar government challenging the state high court’s judgments in two separate cases wherein the confiscation proceedings were quashed against family members of public servants Ravindra Prasad Singh and Naresh Paswan, who died during their prosecution for alleged corruption and accumulation of assets disproportionate to their income.
The high court held that there was no special provision under the Bihar Special Courts Act (BSCA), 2009, to continue confiscation proceedings after the death of a public servant. Referring to Section 19 of the BSCA, which provides for the return of property upon acquittal, the high court had directed the state government to return the confiscated properties in the case, as the proceedings had been dropped following the death of the public servant.
Aggrieved, the Bihar government approached the top court.
Upholding the appeal, a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N.K. Singh said there was a clear distinction between acquittal and abatement of proceedings. Abatement of proceedings is the suspension or termination of a lawsuit or appeal because of the appelant’s death. It is not a comment on the merits of the matter.
“In the present case, the death would not let the respondent ‘off the hook’ since she (wife of the deceased) had been proceeded against for holding the delinquent officer’s allegedly illegally begotten property right from the time that the authorities became alive to his alleged misdeeds,” Justice Karol, who authored the judgment, observed.
“We may observe that it is a settled position in law that a non-public servant can be proceeded against when the initial case is registered under Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act by virtue of Section 107 of the IPC. The death of such a person does not extinguish the fact that a confiscation order has been made after hearing the parties,” he added.