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Three ex-CITCO staffers jailed for casteist slurs against Hotel Mountview security guard
Incident dates back to 2000; now aged between 69 and 77, the three convicts will undergo six months of rigorous imprisonment and will also have to pay a fine of ₹5,000 each
A special court has found three retired employees of the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation Limited (CITCO) guilty of using casteist language against a security guard at Hotel Mountview, Sector 10, in 2000.
Among the convicts, Praveen Goswami, 69, was a security officer at the hotel, while Kulbhushan Sharma, 77, and Surinder Pal Singh, 76, successively held the post of chief security officer (CSO) at the time of the incident.
Found guilty under Section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the accused will undergo six months of rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of ₹5,000 each.
The complainant, Ram Kumar of Indira Colony, Manimajra, had served in the military for 16 years before joining CITCO as a security guard.
On October 15, 2000, he was on patrolling duty at Hotel Mountview, when security officer Praveen Goswami asked him to switch off a TV that was being watched by some guests and staff.
As per the complaint, when Kumar shared with Goswami that a cricket match was on, the latter used casteist remarks against him and hurled abuses in front of other people.
Kumar took the matter to Kulbhushan Sharma, the CSO at the time, who assured him of action, but didn’t do anything.
After Sharma retired, Surinder Pal Singh took over the position and pressured Kumar to withdraw the complaint.
Singh also made false complaints against Kumar, based on which an inquiry was marked against him by the CITCO managing director and his services were terminated on January 19, 2005.
Kumar had also approached the Punjab and Haryana high court regarding this, where proceedings in the present case were quashed against Vijay Kumar Gupta, the then general manager of Hotel Shivalikview, while the case was committed to the sessions court for trial on March 3, 2014.
In court, all three accused pleaded that they were innocent. They claimed that Kumar was argumentative and rude, and was removed from service because of negligent behaviour.
Citing their age, they also pleaded about their health issues, how it was their first offence and how they had been regularly attending the court proceedings.
The court observed that there were two main questions – whether the accused used derogatory language knowing Kumar’s caste status and whether they criminally intimidated him.
Though the offence under Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, as alleged by the complainant, was not proved, the trio was convicted under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The court also took note of the fact that all warning letters given to Kumar were after the date of his initial complaint and it cannot be said that he used his caste as a tool to falsely implicate them.
Convicts plead leniency in old age, handed minimum sentence
Before the quantum of sentence was pronounced, Surinder Pal Singh, 76, said his 70-year-old wife will be left all alone at home and they both were suffering from old-age ailments.
Praveen Goswami, 69, said he had been taking medicines for brain stroke and had been suffering with brain issues after an accident on August 1, 2022.
Kulbushan Sharma, 77, also said there was no one at home to look after his 73-year-old wife, while he himself was a heart patient.
However, the court observed that considering the character and antecedents of the convicts, and entire facts and circumstances of the case, no ground was made out for taking a sympathetic and lenient view.
However, the court did take note that the trio had been facing trial for more than 12 years. As Section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act entails imprisonment for a minimum six months, which may extend to five years, the court awarded the minimum sentence for the offence.
