The Special CBI court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Jagjit Singh convicted Davinder Singh alias Devinder Thapa under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. (File)The special CBI court of Chandigarh Thursday sentenced to five-year rigorous imprisonment a former junior assistant in the office of the Registrar of Firms and Societies, Punjab, in connection with a graft case of 2011.
The Special CBI court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Jagjit Singh convicted Davinder Singh alias Devinder Thapa under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 3 lakh on the convict.
While pronouncing the sentence, the court said, “The corruption has seeped so much into the roots of the society, and every nook and corner that the people have started forming a notion that for any work they have to bribe some official. Slowly, an opinion is being formed that even for their lawful work, a person or official has to be bribed. 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 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. 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 the society to the right things,” the court observed.
The court has already acquitted in the case a second person, Bhag Singh, the then private secretary at the Punjab secretariat, posted as personal assistant to a Cabinet minister, with proceedings against Raj Khurana, a former Punjab MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS), being dropped as he passed away in 2017.
As per details, the accused were put on trial under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
The graft case was registered in 2011 on the complaint of one Manpreet Singh, general secretary of Punjab Automobile Mechanics Association. Singh had alleged that the association had purchased a pocket of land in 1981 at Bishangarh village, Dera Bassi. Later, the association decided to sell the land. Initially, the land could not be sold due to a court case, which was finally wrapped up in 2009. Subsequently, the land was sold and the amount distributed among members of the association. Singh alleged that a few days after selling the land, accused Davinder Singh Thapa rang him up, told him that there was a complaint against him and other executive members of the association. The complainant, Manpreet Singh, and vice-president of the association, S S Sondhi, met Davinder who told him that there were orders to depute an IAS officer as the head of Punjab Automobile Mechanics Association and also for registering an FIR against the executive members of the association.
As per allegations, Thapa demanded Rs 2 crore from Singh to close the complaint against them, which the association members negotiated down to Rs 1.50 crore. Thapa told the members that he would get the work done through one Raj Khurana, who would approach Manoranjan Kalia, a minister of Punjab government, for the purpose.