The corrupt must be hanged in public: SC

SC says the only way to rid the nation of corruption is to hang some people in public.

Everyone wants to loot the country, and the only way to get rid of the corrupt is to hang a few of them, according to the Supreme Court.

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“The only way to rid the country of corruption is to hang a few of you from the lamppost. The law does not permit us to do it but otherwise we would prefer to hang people like you from the lamppost,” a bench of justices S.B. Sinha and Markandeya Katju said on Wednesday while hearing the bail petition of an accused in the Rs 1,000-crore fodder scam.

The scam, in which Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is also an accused, had rocked Bihar in the late 1990s.

As the counsel of the accused — Braj Bhushan Prasad, a dismissed employee of the Bihar government — tried to make a submission, Katju said, “Everywhere, we have corruption. Nothing is free from corruption. Everybody wants to loot this country. The only solution for this menace is to hang some people in public so that it acts as a deterrent to others."

The counsel's submission that Bhushan was a mere budget-accounts officer further infuriated the bench, which observed, "Look at that. You are supposed to audit the funds, but see what you have done."

Bhushan was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by a special court in Jharkhand in connection with the fodder scam.

The bench also rejected the counsel's plea for a direction to the Jharkhand High Court to dispose of the appeal filed by Bhushan against his conviction.