Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 18: Special Judge Anti-corruption Jammu Tahir Khurshid Raina has awarded three years imprisonment and imposed Rs 50 lakh fine on a public servant, the then Section Officer in the Planning Section of DC office Jammu in a disproportionate of assets case.
The court ordered that the fine amount, if not paid by the convict within a period of two months, shall be recovered by the District Collector from the disproportionate assets of the convict as arrears of land revenue.
While awarding sentence the court referred to the mandate of the Supreme Court that “judges who bear the sword of justice should not hesitate to use that sword with utmost severity to the full and to the end, if the gravity of the offence so demands”.
After hearing APP Irshad Ahmed Sheikh for the Vigilance Organization (now ACB) whereas Advocate G S Thakur for the accused, the court observed, “keeping in view the level of corruption/misuse of official position prevailing in our officialdom and the huge ill-gotten wealth which is proved to be amassed by the convict, it is an appropriate case wherein to apply this mandate of the SC with its full rigour to give a bold, clear and deterrent message to the society at large and corrupts in particular of the consequences of the crime committed”.
“Though, it is by-gone now and time can’t be reversed to compensate all those who would have been victims of the uncontrolled avarice of the convict. However, they can be compensated differently. It is in this context this court finds it an appropriate time and opportunity to give a bold and deterrent message to the convict public servant and his ilk in the system that whatever has been acquired and amassed by him and proved to be disproportionate to his known source of income is to be taken back from him as fine amount to be deposited in the Government treasury to be utilized for all sort of welfare activities”, the Special Judge said.
Court further observed that it was purely in this context that Section 8B was inserted in the J&K PC Act whereby power was given to the investigating officer to attach and seize the property of the public servant he has reason to believe to have been acquired by resorting to such acts of omission and commission which constitute an offence of “Criminal-misconduct” as defined under Section 5 of the Act.
“Unfortunately, this provision of the Act was not invoked by the IO in the instant case at the relevant time. However, this lapse will now be addressed by this court by invoking another provision of the Act as envisaged in Sub-Section (4) of Section 5 of the Act, which mandates that where a sentence of fine is imposed under the provisions of this Act, the court shall take into consideration the amount or the value of the property, if any, which the accused person, has obtained by committing the offence and for which he has failed to account for”, the Special Judge said.
“As the convict is in his seventies and keeping in view the long drawn trial he has faced in the case and also being deprived of the company of his wife, who has died during the course of trial, this court does not feel it appropriate to award him full dose of imprisonment prescribed in the Act for commission of offences”, the Special Judge said.
Accordingly, he was awarded three years of simple imprisonment and a fine, for commission of offence under J&K PC Act.
The accused failed to account for the disproportionate assets costing Rs 76 lakh (excluding the big chunk of state land at Bathindi and Auqaf land at Gandhi Nagar on which he has constructed two houses and more than 100 tolas of gold). Accordingly, he fine of Rs 50 lakh was imposed to be deposited by him in the Government treasury to be utilized for the welfare activities of the people.
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