Sacked IA officer jailed for 4 years in DA case

A sacked Indian Airlines officer has been jailed for four years for possessing disproportionate assets worth Rs 63.06 lakh, double his known income, by a Delhi court which said he failed to maintain the "purity" of public office.

Special CBI Judge Kanwaljeet Arora awarded four years rigorous jail 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 happens) attitude has resulted in raising the audacity of people to flout laws and needed to be checked.

The court said there are "innumerable" public servants, who instead of thinking in the national interest, misuse their official positions for their own economic uplift rather than letting the government do something for those who are needy.

If corruption is not tackled, it will lead to "death of society" by continuous debilitation, it said.

The court said being a public servant, Sehgal, an ex-area manager in Indian Airlines in Kuwait, had committed criminal misconduct by possessing pecuniary resources of Rs 63.06 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.

It said Sehgal was driven by greed and failed to maintain the purity of his public office and criminally misconducted himself by having assets disproportionate to the known sources of his income.

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

"It is this criminal misconduct in which convict (Sehgal), had indulged by amassing pecuniary resources disproportionate to his known sources of income, which society denounces and as such is required to be punished.

"Merely because convict was not involved with any direct act of bribery, the offence for which he has been convicted does not get diluted," the judge said.