Chandigarh cop awarded four-year jail for Rs 5K graft

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here has sentenced Head Constable Raj Kumar of the UT Police to undergo four years of rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case registered against him eight years ago. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on the convict.

The CBI had arrested the accused cop in January 2017 while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000 from the complainant, Anil Kumar, a resident of Ram Darbar. The agency had claimed that the cop, who was then posted in the Sector 31 police station, was demanding the bribe from the complainant to let him off in an assault case.

The CBI had claimed that the police had received a complaint of assault against Anil Kumar. The complaint was filed by a woman of his locality. The accused cop was tasked with the investigation into the complaint following which he visited the complainant’s house and met his father. Later, when the complainant visited the police station, the cop demanded Rs 20,000 in order to let him off in the case.

The CBI claimed that since the complainant did not want to give the bribe, he approached the agency. Acting swiftly, the CBI sleuths laid a trap and arrested Raj Kumar while he was allegedly accepting the bribe of Rs 5,000.

The counsel for the accused argued that the accused was falsely implicated, while Narender Singh, the public prosecutor, claimed that the prosecution had proved the case beyond a shadow of doubt.

After hearing the arguments from both the sides, the court held the accused guilty and pronounced the quantum of punishment.