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Privilege vs Corruption and the Verdict of "Not Proven"

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P. V. Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister of India in 1991 shortly after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi during the election campaign. He inducted Dr. Manmohan Singh, the then former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission as the Finance Minister in the new cabinet. They spearheaded the 1991 economic reforms and liberalization which opened up the economy for foreign investments and ended the license permit raj. Crucially, it triggered the Indian economy to grow at a much faster pace than the embarrassing 3.5% Hindu rate of growth as some would mockingly term it.

While Mr. Rao needs to be remembered for this pivotal moment in the short history of Independent India, there is another incident that happened at the fag end of his political career which is the topic of interest of this article. There was a case of corruption filed against Mr. Rao in 1996 after the completion of the term of the government. There are two interesting legal aspects related to the case. However, before moving ahead, a little background.

Narasimha Rao government was governing with a thin majority in the parliament with the support of the Left parties. These parties were not in support of the 1991 economic reforms, naturally because the reforms brought in some capitalistic aspects of economic management and took India away from the path of socialism. So these communist parties withdrew their support to the government and moved a "No-confidence motion" against the government in the parliament in 1993. The government survived the vote and went on to complete its five year term. But after the completion of the term, in 1996, a complaint was filed with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about possible corruption right before the 1993 trust vote. It was alleged that certain Members of Parliament (MPs) were bribed to vote in favour of the government during the no-confidence motion. Mr. Rao as the head of the government became the primary accused.

The first legal argument that was used as a defence from the the side of Mr. Rao was of "Parliamentary Privilege". This concept has been borrowed from the British parliament. It states that the MPs have immunity and cannot be tried in court for any statements or votes in the parliament. This is to ensure that the MPs can express their opinions openly and vote freely without the possibility of prosecution in courts looming over their head. This was used by Mr. Rao to argue that the trust vote comes under voting privilege and a case cannot be filed about anything related to it. The Supreme Court of India (SC) did not agree with this argument. It stated that the privilege only applies to speeches and votes given in the houses of the parliament, If the bribe is paid before the vote, outside of the parliament, then it is an offense in itself without the protection of parliamentary privilege. A crime that has probably been committed cannot be ignored merely because it is related to an action that is protected under the parliamentary privilege. It similarly rejected some other arguments put up by the defendants and paved the way for the first ever trial of a former Prime Minister for corruption.

Mr. Rao was granted bail on the initial charges by a special CBI court in 1996. In 2000, the trial court convicted him for corruption but in 2002, the Delhi High Court overturned the conviction. The statements of the key witnesses were found to be contradictory and conflicting which resulted in his acquittal due to "lack of evidence". The High Court gave a verdict of non-guilty.

But the reason "lack of evidence" brings forth the second legal aspect related to this case. In Scotland, under Scots law, there can be three possible verdicts: "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven" [1]. The "not proven" verdict still means acquittal and the person cannot be tried again. There is a procedural defence commonly know as "Double Jeopardy" [2], that prevents an accused from being tried again on the same charges with same evidence following a valid verdict. In the Indian context [3], the double jeopardy protection is given for valid convictions by the Constitution. While the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) gives protection to re-trial of valid acquittals with certain caveats in case of discovery of new evidence. This reminds me of the case of Arnab Goswami vs The State of Maharashtra. Mr. Goswami was arrested in 2020 on the charges of abetment to suicide. The original case was of 2018 in which the Police had initially filed an "A-summary" report in 2019 after investigation. The case was supposedly "re-opened" and Mr. Goswami was arrested. While the details of the case are out of the scope of this post, there are parallels between the "A-summary" report and the "not proven" verdict. The Bombay police manual 1959 describes the A-summary report as the final report filed in the case when culprits are unknown or there is insufficient evidence against the accused for a trial in a magistrate's court [4]. This effectively means that the charges can "not be proven". So a provision similar to the "not proven" verdict exists in the Indian law enforcement system as well and with similar exceptions that the case can be reopened if new evidence is found in the case but not otherwise.

 

References:

[1] https://berlowrahman.scot/the-not-proven-verdict-in-scotland/

[2] http://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-60-double-jeopardy.html

[3] https://blog.ipleaders.in/understanding-autrefois-acquit-autrefois-convict/

[4] https://lawgic.info/what-is-an-a-summary-b-summary-and-c-summary-report-filed-in-a-criminal-case/

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