Bhubaneswar: A special vigilance court here Tuesday sentenced a police officer to three years rigorous imprisonment after finding him guilty in a bribery case.
The convict was identified as Ramachandra Sethi, who was a sub-inspector at Chandrasekharpur police station in 2009.
According to case details, Sethi had taken bribe from a person in order to expunge his name from the charge-sheet. The accused police officer also asked for money from the complainant for early submission of the station diary at court so that the latter’s father could get bail soon.
Complainant Jitendra Kumar Padhy’s family entered into a dispute when they asked their tenant, Pandab Kumar Swain, to vacate the room as soon as possible. Subsequently, Swain lodged a complaint against Padhy and his family members while Padhy’s father, Bhimsen Padhy filed a counter complaint in 2009.
Subsequently, Sethi who was given the charge of investigation into the complaints registered separate cases (CS no. 83/09 and CS no. 84/09) against both the parties and started a probe into the issues.
Padhy’s father was arrested and sent to judicial custody after rejection of his bail plea by the court few days later. Meanwhile, Sethi arrested Bhimsen despite being in the loop about the fact that both the parties had already arrived at a compromise by the time of Bhimsen’s arrest.
Sethi asked Padhy to pay Rs 5,000 for submission of the station dairy early so that his father could avail bail soon. He also promised to expunge the name of Padhy from the charge-sheet to be submitted to the court. Padhy contacted the superintendent of vigilance department after giving Sethi Rs 1,000 as advance.
Later, the vigilance sleuths laid a trap and caught Sethi red-handed on the settled date between Sethi and the complainant December 14, 2009. The sleuths arrested Sethi after a brief chase while he was trying to escape by jumping off the police station wall.
The special vigilance court awarded him three years RI and asked him to pay Rs 10,000 as fine failing which he has to undergo additional six months’ jail term. Special public Prosecutor Himansu Kumar Swain conducted the case on behalf of the Vigilance.