The Supreme Court today said that Municipal councillors come under the category of public servants and they can be prosecuted for their corrupt activities under the Prevention of Corruption, PC Act.

The court said the 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.

A bench of justices C K Prasad and J S Khehar 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 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.