Saying that she misused the system to her benefit by demanding bribes, despite being appointed on compassionate grounds, the special court of the CBI, Chandigarh, held that convict Raka Ghirra deserves punishment, which acts as a deterrent to others. The Court awarded retired Punjab deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Ghirra six-year jail in a 2011 corruption case.Stating that she misused the system to her benefit by demanding bribes, despite being appointed on compassionate grounds, the special court of the CBI, Chandigarh, held that convict Raka Ghirra deserves punishment, which acts as deterrent to others. The court awarded retired Punjab deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Ghirra six-year jail in a 2011 corruption case. (HT Photo)Ghirra, 60, was found guilty under Sections 7, 13 (1) (d) punishable under 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The court has also fined the retired officer ₹2 lakh.In 2011, the then DSP Mohali, Ghirra was arrested by CBI from her residence at Sector 15, Chandigarh, for accepting a bribe of ₹1 lakh from a realtor. The trap was laid after complainant Krishna Kumar Malhotra alleged that she had demanded a bribe of ₹2 lakh to settle the investigation into a complaint against him in a land dispute case.In October 2011, he moved the Punjab and Haryana high court, alleging threat to his and his family’s life. Later, he turned hostile during the trial. However, Ghirra’s reader Manmohan Singh, an accused, was made an approver by the CBI. The CBI fought the case using testimonies of 21 witnesses.‘Falsely implicated’, says ex-copIn 2001, she was recruited as an inspector in the Punjab Police on compassionate grounds after the death of her husband and promoted as DSP in 2007.Pleading that she has been falsely implicated, Ghirra stated that due to her direct appointment as SHO and being the first woman SHO in Punjab, a lot of police officers started holding grudges against her.She pleaded that “her only mistake was that she fought against the system, followed the rule of law, and now she has been made a victim of the brutality of the system”.She also cited that two more cases of the Excise Act as well as the Arms Act were registered against her. She was acquitted in the Arms Act case in 2019 and the Excise Case was quashed by the Punjab and Haryana high court.Citing her old age, ailing health and a young son to look after, Ghirra pleaded leniency from the court.Narender Singh, public prosecutor for the CBI, argued that the convict has misused the faith placed upon her while granting a job on compassionate grounds.Singh argued: “Despite being part of the criminal justice system, she did not do justice with people and instead indulged in corrupt practices, and, therefore, deserve exemplary punishment, which would deter other persons from indulging in such like offences.”
The judgment
Jagjit Singh, special judge, CBI, observed: “The conduct of the convict in the present case has been such that despite having been appointed on compassionate grounds to the job, and despite requiring her to be more vigilant during her duties being part of the criminal justice system, she has misused the same system to her benefit by demanding bribes from people, who otherwise, felt to have been falsely involved in cases.”
The court ordered that no benefit of the punishment provided in the pre-amended Act can be granted to the convict.
Stating that the corruption has seeped so much into the roots of society that the people have started forming a notion that for any work they have to bribe some official, the judgment mentions: “As a result of this, people like the convict have started taking benefit of this notion being formed, and have started misusing this thought process. A deep nexus has, thus, been built between a person like the convict and the person who obliges the person like the convict to improperly perform their public duty and want to be rewarded for such improper performance of their public duty,” it added.
The court observed that this nexus between convict and such like persons, who are hand in glove with each other, needs to be broken as early as it can be to bring back the faith of the people in society to the right things.
“She does not deserve the leniency, as prayed for. The convict, rather, deserves a punishment which would act as a deterrent to the other persons in society, so that they would think twice before committing such an offence,” the court added
TAGS: CBI Special Cour t Raka Ghirra Corruption Case Prevention of Corruption Act
