The Special Judge, Vigilance here on Tuesday sentenced Chandrasekharpur police station Sub-Inspector of Police Rama Chandra Sethi to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) in a bribery case.
Sethi was convicted for demand and acceptance of a bribe of Rs 4,000. A fine of Rs 10,000 was also imposed on him by the court. In the case of nonpayment of the fine, he will have to undergo RI for six more months.
The case pertained to a dispute between the family of complainant Jitendra Kumar Padhy and his tenant Pandab Swain regarding vacation of the house in 2009.
The tenant had lodged an FIR against the complainant and his family members at the Chandrasekharpur police station.
A counter case was lodged by Bhimsen Padhy, father of Jitendra, against Pandab.
Subsequently, the matter was settled between them and the tenant vacated the house.
After taking charge of investigation of the case, SI Sethi arrested the father of the complainant and forwarded him to court.
Jitendra approached the police official during which the latter demanded an illegal gratification of Rs 5,000 to submit the case diary in court for release of Jitendra’s father and removal of the name from the charge-sheet.
Jitendra paid Rs 1,000 to the SI and the rest amount was settled to be paid later. The complainant approached the SP, Vigilance, Bhubaneswar, and lodged an FIR against the SI.
Accordingly, a trap was laid and Sethi was caught red-handed while accepting the bribe.
