A law officer of CBI, posted with its Kolkata unit, has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court for demanding bribe from a person in return for favouring him in an inquiry against him.
The court convicted D K Srivastava, Deputy Legal Advisor of CBI, under the Prevention of Corruption Act and also imposed a fine of Rs two lakh on him. "Facts of the case portray a very dismal and depressing image about how back-door-exoneration-against-consideration is rampant even in CBI. Courts can deliver justice only when investigation is completely unprejudiced and impartial. If the truth is throttled and garroted during the investigation stage itself, then eradication of corruption from our country would remain a delusion," Special CBI Judge Manoj Jain said.
Srivastava was released on bail till December 19 by the court on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of the like amount. According to CBI, a complaint was made by one Rajiv Sharma on May 11, 2006 alleging that Srivastava had demanded Rs four lakh bribe from him on the promise that he would favour him in a preliminary enquiry going on against him in a criminal case.
Following the complaint, CBI registered a case against Srivastava and arrested him when he was accepting the bribe amount from Sharma. He is now posted in Kolkata zone of CBI.
The agency filed its charge sheet within two months in the court which found him guilty for the offences of demanding and accepting bribe relating and criminal misconduct on the part of a public servant.
The court said "there cannot be any doubt that CBI is burdened with herculean task of apprehending the corrupt officials and to bring them to the books and it was least expected from a senior official of the prosecution department of CBI to have indulged in what he was supposed to shun. "He was required to keep himself clean and disciplined so that others could emulate him. He was shouldered with the responsibility to expose corrupt persons but he, instead, tried to become one himself."
