New Delhi: The Supreme Court has observed that a government official convicted in a corruption case should not be allowed to rejoin service till he or she is exonerated.
While dismissing a petition by an inspector of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), the bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Prasanna B Varale also observed that allowing such corrupt officials to resume duty can ‘damage public trust’.
“Why should a corrupt public official be allowed to resume the job? If a guilty officer is allowed to remain in service, it will weaken the foundation of the system. This would be an insult to honest officers,” it added.
The inspector, convicted on charges of bribery and sentenced to two years imprisonment by a trial court, had initially moved the Gujarat High Court against the order. The High Court, in an interim order, suspended the sentence and granted bail to the inspector, but refused to suspend his conviction till completion of hearing.
The inspector then moved the Supreme Court and submitted that the trial court had committed an error in convicting the inspector and awarding him a two-year prison term. There was no evidence to show that the inspector had demanded and accepted a bribe, his advocate said, praying for the top court to stay the conviction and allow his client to resume his job.
The bench cited the case of K C Sareen vs Union of India and observed: “A convicted officer cannot be allowed to continue in service merely on the ground that an appeal is pending in a higher court. Allowing such public servants to continue in public office damages public trust.” The Court then dismissed the petition.
In the K C Sareen vs Union of India case, the top court had noted that “when a public servant was found guilty of corruption after a judicial adjudicatory process conducted by a court of law, judiciousness demands that he should be treated as corrupt until he is exonerated by a superior court.”
