Councillors are public servants, to be tried under PC Act: SC

Municipal councillors come under the category of public servants and they can be prosecuted for their corrupt activities under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Supreme Court today said.
The court said the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988 envisages widening of the scope of the definition of the expression public servant and it was brought in force to purify public administration.
"The legislature has used a comprehensive definition of public servant to achieve the purpose of punishing and curbing corruption among public servants.
"... Bearing in mind this principle, when we consider the case of the appellant (councillor), we have no doubt that he is a public servant within the meaning of Section 2(c) of the Act. Sub-section (viii) of Section 2(c) of the present (PC) Act makes any person, who holds an office by virtue of which he is authorised or required to perform any public duty, to be a public servant," a bench of justices C K Prasad and J S Khehar said.

The bench was deciding an appeal by Manish Trivedi, who as a municipal councillor from Banswara in Rajasthan and a member of the municipal board in 2000, was accused of taking bribe and named in a charge sheet under the PC Act.
He had contended that as a councillor, he does not come in the ambit of definition of public servant under the PC Act.

However, dismissing his appeal, the apex court said the word office in the PC Act is of indefinite connotation and, in the present context, it would mean a position or place to which certain duties are attached and has an existence which is independent of the persons who fill it.

"Councillors and members of the Board are positions which exist under the Rajasthan Municipalities Act. It is independent of the person who fills it. They perform various duties which are in the field of public duty. From the conspectus of what we have observed above, it is evident that appellant is a public servant within Section 2(c)(viii) of the PC Act, 1988," the bench held.
"In the present case, the Municipal Councillor or member of the Board does not come within the definition of public servant as defined under Section 21 of the Indian Penal Code, but in view of the legal fiction created by Section 87 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act,they come within its definition," the bench said.

Trivedi was accused of demanding and accepting Rs 50,000 as bribe from a man for allotting him a kiosk.