Home department staff gets 1.5 years jail term in graft case

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court recently sentenced a ministerial staff in the Police Joint Commissioner office, Egmore range, to 1.5 years of jail term in a graft case for taking bribe of Rs 2,000 from a suspended Sub-Inspector.

Justice P Velmurugan of the High Court passed the order allowing an appeal preferred by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) that sought direction to set aside a special court order aquitting the respondent V Ashok Kumar, who was a superintendent in the PR section of the JC, Egmore office, in a case registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The prosecution submitted that he was caught red-handed while taking a bribe from an SI named Shanmugam in 2008. The SI was suspended from duty for taking long leave in 2003. The SI appealed against the decision of the committee before the Assistant Commissioner, and the same was forwarded to the JC. In order to know the status of his representation, the SI approached superintendent Ashok Kumar.

As Kumar demanded Rs 2,000 for declaring the details about Shanmugam’s representation, the suspended SI lodged a complaint with DVAC.

Concurring with the submissions of DVAC, the judge sentenced Ashok Kumar to undergo rigorous imprisonment of six months with a penalty of Rs 5000 for the offense under Section 7 of the Act and to undergo a rigorous jail term of one year with the additional penalty of Rs. 5,000 under Section 13 of the Act.