India, Aug. 19 -- A three-decade-old corruption case involving an alleged Rs 20 bribe has finally come to an end, with the Supreme Court acquitting two Gujarat government employees and setting aside their convictions, media reports said.

A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar ruled that the conviction of a clerk and a peon could not be sustained merely because Rs 20 was recovered from the peon when the prosecution had failed to establish that a bribe had actually been demanded.

Case began over income certificate

The case dates back to February 1996, when a student approached the Bechari Gram Panchayat office in Gujarat's Anand district to obtain an income certificate needed to avail educational concessions.

The student...