A 67-year-old former employee of the defence ministry has been sentenced to one-year rigorous jail term for corruption by a Delhi court which refused to take a lenient view towards him, saying a high standard of conduct is expected of a public servant.
Additional Sessions Judge Vrinda Kumari said, "A high standard of conduct is expected of a public servant. Economic offences, including the ones involving disproportionate assets, are required to be dealt with sternly."
The judge made the observations while convicting Tarsem Lal Verma, a former officer in the Armed Forces Film and Photo Division, in a case lodged by the CBI which said that he illegally acquired disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 42 lakh between 1999 and 2008.
The court, which also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Verma, said that in cases of corruption, age and previous clean record of a convict cannot be considered.
"In case of corruption, age, family responsibilities, previous clean record of a convict, possibility of loss of job cannot be considered as mitigating circumstances," it said.
According to the CBI, Verma acquired assets by corrupt and illegal means in his own name and in the name of his family members which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.
An FIR was lodged in 2008 against him for offences under section 13(2) (public servant who commits criminal misconduct) read with 13 (1)(e)(public servant possessing disproportionate assets) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Following this, Verma was discharged from his official services by an order of the Ministry of Defence in 2010 with effect from 1993.
Seeking leniency from the court, the convict's counsel submitted that Verma was suffering from various ailments and deserved a lenient sentence as he was towards the fag end of his life.
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