Petty crime, swift punishment

Chiranjit Parmar

CAN anyone imagine in today’s  scenario that a tehsil clerk was jailed for two years for taking a bribe of Rs 20? It is true and happened in Himachal Pradesh 48 years ago.

In 1969, I was posted as Horticulture Development Officer at Dharamsala.  One day, while I was at Kangra in connection with some official work, I got a message from SK Alok, SDM Kangra, asking me to come to his residence. He told me that he was going to conduct a raid and wanted me to be a shadow witness. PS Kumar, a young IPS officer posted as DSP Kangra, was also present. Alok was also a young IAS officer and it was probably his first posting. 

A tehsil clerk was asking for bribe and a trap was being laid to catch him red-handed. It was a legal requirement for such traps to have a shadow witness. Alok prepared the requisite legal papers needed before conducting such raids. He then took two currency notes of Rs 10 each and signed them.  One of the notes was given to the person from whom the clerk was demanding money.  The plan was that this person would go to the clerk, hand him the signed notes and give us a signal. 

Things worked perfectly as per plan.  Alok, accompanied by Kumar and me, immediately went to the clerk and asked him if he had accepted money, which he denied. The clerk was then searched and the signed notes were recovered from his pocket. All this happened in a jiffy and the clerk was ordered to be arrested. 

It was my first experience of this kind. Before that, I had only read about such incidents. I was a bit puzzled. I asked Alok what would happen now.  He said only the district and sessions judge, Kangra district, would decide the matter. The accused clerk was handcuffed and sent to the police lock-up right away.

The clerk was tried at the Dharamsala Sessions Court and the judge sentenced him to two years of rigorous imprisonment. The case was decided in one-and-a-half years. The clerk had filed an appeal in the next higher court, which too was rejected. He spent the next two years in jail for taking a mere Rs 20 as bribe. 

It seems unbelievable, and impossible too, in today’s India, where persons accused of taking crores of rupees as bribe are outside jail on bail and a petty tehsil clerk had to serve a jail term for a small sum, that too within two years of committing the offence.

If this were to happen in India — with zero-tolerance to corruption — it would be the real beginning of acche din. Sadly, I do not think such acche din will ever come in this country. I would be happy to be proved  wrong.