Bombay High Court upholds 1-year jail term to engineer for seeking Rs2,000 bribe

Six years after a lower court found a zilla parishad engineer in Osmanabad guilty of demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs2000, the Bombay High Court recently upheld his conviction.

Justice A I S Cheema rejected the 46-year-old convict's argument that he had been implicated and the money he had received was a hand loan that had given to the complainant.

According to the prosecution, the complainant is a certain Yuvraj Yede, who was authorized to supervise and follow up on payment from the zilla parishad on behalf of a contractor. The contractor, Ganesh Majoor Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit Sarola, had undertaken a stormwater drain project.

On April 11, 2007, Yede contacted a section engineer, requesting him to forward the layout plans and map to the executive engineer who would then release the payment. However, the official demanded Rs7,000 for it. Yede negotiated and brought down the bribe amount to Rs2,000, which was to be paid the next day.

Acting on Yede's complaint, the anti-corruption bureau caught the engineer red-handed and booked him under the Prevention of Corruption Act. During the trial, six witnesses testified against the defendant, who claimed that he had given a hand loan to Yede, who was paying him back.

Holding the engineer guilty for bribery, the trial court in 2008 sentenced him to one year in jail. Following this, he had moved the HC. Rejecting his appeal, Justice Cheema ruled, "The defence that accused did not receive gratification but that it was loan which was being returned is rejected. There is no motive for complainant to falsely implicate the accused."