Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 28: Presiding Officer CBI Court Srinagar Mohan Singh Parihar has awarded eight years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs 10 lakh to Sub Postmaster Ghulam Qadir Lone, who has committed large scale misappropriation of deposits in Post Office Bandipora.
According to the prosecution case, the accused during his posting as Sub-Postmaster Post Office Bandipora in the year 2008-2009, dishonestly and fraudulently cheated the public by way of misappropriating the deposits received from various private persons for investment in Term Deposit Scheme.
The accused used to issue bogus passbooks to the persons who came to him for depositing their money in the Post Office Bandipora in one year Term Deposit Scheme and in this way misappropriated money to the tune of Rs 15,97,600.
After hearing Special Public Prosecutor Kapil Verma for the CBI, the court observed, “the menace of corruption needs to be curbed at any cost and dealing with corrupt public servants with iron hands is one of such measures”, adding “the corrupt public servants indulge in illegal means by abuse of their official positions as public servants and either loot the State exchequer or take illegal gratification from the third persons”.
“Section 5(5) of the Prevention of Corruption Act requires the court to impose fine by taking into consideration the amount or the value of property so acquired. In my view, these provisions need to be applied in letter and spirit in order to make good the loss caused to the State exchequer, in addition to the sentence of imprisonment”, Presiding Officer said.
The instant case was registered on 25-05-2010, by CBI-ACB, Srinagar against the accused and after conducting the investigation, CBI filed the chargesheet in the court for the prosecution of the accused on 25-05-2011. The accused faced trial for more than seven years, the court observed, adding “the age of the accused is about 67 years. Therefore, awarding of maximum sentence provided for the offences committed by the accused will not serve the ends of justice and rather the recovery of fine is not only in the interest of justice but rather would serve as deterrence for others”.
Accordingly, Ghulam Qadir Lone of Sonarwani Bandipora was awarded eight years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs 10 lakh.
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