New Delhi: More than 17 years after being caught demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 100 from a patient at a government hospital, the Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of two employees under Prevention of Corruption Act.
But since the incident was nearly two-decades-old and the duo - Mukut Bihari and Kalyan Mal - had undergone considerable trauma during the protracted litigation, the court reduced the punishment to one year RI as against the two-year sentence imposed by the trial court and affirmed by the Rajasthan High Court.
"However, considering the fact that the incident occurred about two decades ago and the appellants suffer from severe ailments, they have lost their service long ago and suffered the agony of protracted litigation, the appellant no 1 (Mukut) has been suffering from acute pancreatitis and both the appellants have served the sentence for more than six months, in the facts and circumstances of the case, their sentence is reduced to one year," the court said.
A bench of Justices BS Chauhan and Dipak Misra, rejected the convicts' claim that they were falsely implicated and no independent witness was present when the trap was laid by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau in November 1994 in Rajasthan's Tonk district.
The trap was laid for the two employees of Sahadat Hospital, Tonk on a complaint by one Rafiq that they demanded Rs 100 bribe to issue the discharge slip in favour of his father Deen Mohd who had undergone treatment for a urinary infection.
The trial court on September 7, 2001, imposed a two-year sentence on the two, which was affirmed by the high court on October 12, 2011, following which, they appealed in the apex court.
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