Sacked Indian Airlines officer jailed in graft case

A Delhi court has sentenced a sacked Indian Airlines officer to four years in jail for possessing disproportionate assets worth R63.06 lakh, double his known income. The court said he had failed to maintain the “purity” of public office.

A Delhi court has sentenced a sacked Indian Airlines officer to four years in jail for possessing disproportionate assets worth Rs 63.06 lakh, double his known income. The court said he had failed to maintain the “purity” of public office.

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Special CBI Judge Kanwaljeet Arora awarded the sentence to Greater Kailash resident Rohit Sehgal, son of a retired DCP in Delhi Police, and also directed him to pay Rs 5 lakh fine, while observing that the ‘kuch nahi hota (nothing will happen)’ attitude has resulted in raising the audacity of people to flout laws, which needs to be checked.

The court said there are “innumerable” public servants, who instead of thinking about national interest, misuse their official positions for their own economic upliftment.

If corruption is not tackled, it will lead to the “death of society” by continuous debilitation, the court observed.

The court said being a public servant, Sehgal had committed criminal misconduct by possessing pecuniary resources of R63.06 lakh from June 2000 to June 2003 and he could not give satisfactory reason about it as the money was disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Sehgal, posted in Delhi as a senior manager (Commercial) in Indian Airlines before being transferred to Kuwait, was held guilty for amassing wealth disproportionate to his known income and criminal misconduct by a public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act.