RPF official sentenced to three years in jail in graft case

An assistant sub-inspector in Railway Protection Force has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court for accepting a bribe of Rs 8,000 after threatening to implicate a man and his son in a theft case.
District Judge P S Teji held ASI Goverdhan Singh Meena, who was posted at a railway station here, guilty of accepting illegal gratification and abusing his position as public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act in the 2008 case.
"Corruption is corroding our country like cancerous lymph nodes, the vital veins of the body politics, social fabric of efficiency in the public service and demoralising the honest officers," the court said, adding that the situation will improve when public servants will start doing his duty diligently and honestly.

The court observed that corruption by public servants has become a "gigantic problem" and no facet of public activity has been left unaffected by its sting.
The judge said, "It has deep and pervasive impact on the functioning of the entire country and large scale corruption retards the national building activities and everyone has to suffer on that count."
The court imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Meena and allowed his plea to suspend his sentence till February 28.

It said the convict will have to surrender himself before it to undergo the three years jail term, if appeal is not filed within 30 days of its judgement.

"CBI has successfully proved its case beyond reasonable doubt against accused (Meena) that he being a public servant while posted as ASI, RPF committed the criminal misconduct by initially demanding the bribe of Rs 20,000 from complainant which he subsequently reduced it to Rs 8,000 at the previous stage i.E. Before making complaint by the complainant to the CBI and before laying the trap as well...
"It has also been established that on September 9, 2008, accused demanded and accepted illegal gratification in the form of bribe of Rs 8,000 from the complainant at the shop of the complainant," the court said.

According to the CBI, a complaint was lodged by Mohammed Saleem alleging that in September 2008, ASI Meena had demanded Rs 20,000 bribe from him for not implicating him and his son in a theft case of railway property and later on, the amount was settled at Rs 8,000.