Court awards 3-yr jail to ex-bank manager in graft case

A sacked manager of a government bank has been awarded a three-year jail term for opening fake accounts about two decades ago, with a special court saying that there has to be zero tolerance for corruption.
The court, which convicted and sentenced 64-year-old Ashok Pasrija, the then manager of Oriental Bank of Commerce in Rajgarh Colony in east Delhi, for cheating, said stringent punishment should be awarded so that the anti-corruption law is not reduced to a mere paper tiger.
"There is no quarrel with this proposition that there has to be zero tolerance for corruption and immediate drastic measures are needed to oust this malady.

"As observed by the apex court.... Corruption is the enemy of the nation and tracking down corrupt public servants and punishing them is the necessary mandate of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act," Special CBI Judge Kamini Lau said.
The court said awarding stringent punishment for those indulging into corrupt practices is necessitated, "least we reduce the provisions of the special law to a mere paper tiger, inadequate to tackle this menace of corruption".
The court noted that four cases were registered against Pasrija for cheating the bank for a total amount of Rs six lakh by making false debit and credit entries in 1992-94 and he has already been convicted in three similar cases.

He was held guilty for the offences of criminal breach of trust by a public servant, cheating, forgery of valuable security, forgery for purpose of cheating and falsification of accounts under the IPC and obtaining any pecuniary advantage by corrupt and illegal means under the PC Act.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 12,000 on Pasrija and said his three-year jail term, awarded in this case, shall run consequent to his sentences in the other three cases.
It allowed his plea to suspend his sentence to enable him to file an appeal against the judgement before superior court and granted him bail for 45 days.

CBI prosecutor Praneet Sharma contended that the convict does not deserve any lenient view as he had misused his official position and cheated innocent account holders and also caused loss to the government exchequer.
According to the CBI, during his tenure as a manager, Pasrija had opened fake accounts in the names of several persons and dishonestly made credit entries in various saving bank accounts and had withdrawn the amounts from them and had also made false debit or credit entries.
It was alleged that in this matter, he had cheated the bank of Rs 1.47 lakh and a case was lodged in 1995.

During the trial, Pasrija denied all the evidence against him and claimed that he had not committed any offence and was falsely implicated in the case.
The court, in its 264-page judgement, said the convict indulged in preparation of false documents, forging of entries and fabrication of accounts for wrongful gain.
"Apart from the bank, the account holders in the respective cases were also put at loss and duped in good faith. The fraud committed by accused could not be detected for a considerable period despite audits since he being a manager in the bank had access to all the documents which he was able to maneuver.

"The acts of the accused posed a fundamental threat to the viability of the organization itself and also resulted in loss to several account holders who trusted him," it said.