Railway officer took bribe to let off thief; sentenced to 3 years RI

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A Railway Protection Force inspector has been sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment for taking bribe from a thief not to implicate him in the theft case.

The High Court upheld the sentence dismissing the contention that the alleged theft material, a hose pipe, was not recovered. The Court said “There was no need to seize the hose pipe. It was just a reason for demanding a bribe.”

M Samil Shah, who worked at the Diesel LocoShed, KR Puram, Bengaluru, approached the High Court against the sentence passed against him by the XLVII Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge (Special Judge for CBI Cases) on March 22, 2011. The appeal before the HC, filed in 2011 was disposed on January 4, 2023 by Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar.

One Mujeeb Ahmed had filed a complaint with the CBI against Shah alleging that he had demanded Rs.50,000 bribe from him not to implicate him in a theft case. Shah had reduced his demand for bribe to Rs.30,000. Ahmed paid Shah Rs.10,000 twice. He further reduced the demand of the remaining amount to Rs.7,000. Ahmed had then approached CBI and a trap was laid for Shah on April 6, 2010.

The CBI Court had sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.10,000 under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. He was also sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment under Section 13(2) of the same Act. In the HC, Shah’s advocate put forth several contentions including that the alleged bribe money was forcibly put into his pocket.

The HC dismissed this contention saying, “The accused does not deny recovery of bait money from him. His stand that the currency notes were forcibly put into his pocket cannot be accepted for if that were to be the case, there was no chance of washes of his both hands answering positive for presence of phenolphthalein.”

Shah also contended that he had taken strict action against theft of Railway properties and therefore scrap dealers had trapped him. Ahmed owed him money for carpentry work and he had demanded it back as he had not fulfilled his work. On the day, Ahmed had forced the money into his pocket and called the CBI police to trap him. The HC dismissed this claim also.

“The defence theory is difficult to accept. If this was the circumstance, nothing prevented the accused from examining a witness to establish the same. There is no use in giving such an explanation without questioning the witnesses on that line,” it said. The court also dismissed the claim on recovery of the theft article and said it was not necessary.

Confirming the sentence and upholding the punishment imposed on him, the HC said, “Accused was a police officer in RPF. He should not have indulged in corruption being a police officer. Therefore I do not want to reduce the sentence.”