A DDA engineer was sent to jail for five years by a city court for taking `15,000 bribe for desealing a businessman’s premises, observing that corruption by public servants has become a gigantic problem which is corroding the country like cancer.
“Corruption is corroding our country like cancerous lymph nodes, the vital veins of the body politics, social fabric of efficiency in the public service, and demoralising the honest officers,” special judge (CBI) P.S. Teji said, while sentencing DDA junior engineer Indira Prasad Uniyal to five years in jail and his conduit Sri Ram Sharma, a supervisor, to four years imprisonment.
The judge said, “It is important to note, corruption by public servants has become a gigantic problem. It has spread everywhere and no facet of public activity has been left unaffected by the sting of corruption”.
The court made the observations in its verdict in a corruption case registered by the CBI on a complaint by Rajeev Kumar, a medicine supplier to government hospitals.
Kumar told CBI in his complaint on August 9, 2005 that he had a house in east Delhi, which he had been using to stock medicines, but which had been sealed by DDA officials Uniyal and Sharma, who were demanding bribe to deseal it.
He said Sharma demanded a bribe of `20,000 and arranged a telephone talk with Uniyal who agreed to deseal his house on payment of `15,000.