36 years after Rs 500 bribe, SC reduces 75-yr-old ex-constable’s jail term

Over three-and-a-half decades after a petty bribery case began, the Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a former Uttarakhand excise constable but reduced his sentence.

A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and PB Vrale was hearing the plea of the former constable against the 2012 order of the High Court of Uttarakhand quashing his appeal against a trial court’s order of sentencing him to two years of rigorous imprisonment under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act provision.

In an order dated March 13, the bench said there was no error in the High Court’s decision upholding the trial court’s order of sentence and conviction but the official, who was now 75 years of age, had already been incarcerated for over two months.

“We are of the opinion that the sentence awarded by the trial court and upheld by the High Court can be modified to the extent of a minimum sentence for the said offences,” the apex court said. It then reduced the jail term to one year under the PC Act provision for a public servant committing criminal misconduct. The protracted legal proceedings began after the former constable was nabbed taking a Rs 500 bribe during a trap proceeding on June 19, 1990, following which an FIR was registered in district Udham Singh Nagar.

The case was committed to the sessions court the next year, which eventually convicted him in 2006. He then spent 14 years appealing the decision in the Supreme Court after the High Court dismissed his plea in 2012. He has been out on bail since January 2013.