A government school's English teacher sentenced to three years imprisonment for demanding Rs 3,000 bribe from a man to clear his son in a supplementary exam in Mathematics has been denied relief by the Delhi High Court which asked him to surrender to undergo the jail term.
"The appellant abused his position as a public servant by demanding and accepting Rs 3,000 from the complainant, on the assurance that he would make his son succeed in compartmental examinations.
"Had he not been holding the position of a teacher in the school, it would not have been possible for him to extend such a demand. Therefore, he abused his position as public servant in obtaining pecuniary advantage...," a bench of Justice V K Jain said.
The order of the court came on an appeal filed by Mahesh Pal Singh, who was an English teacher in Ludlow Castle school.
The court, which rejected Singh's contention that he was not teaching Mathematics to the complainant's son and so was not in a position to help him, directed him to surrender forthwith before the concerned trial court for undergoing the sentence awarded to him and also asked the court to take appropriate steps to secure his presence in case he fails to turn himself in.
Referring to one of its previous judgements, the bench said ordinarily the testimony of the complainant needs to be believed unless there are strong and compelling reasons creating serious doubt on the truthfulness "as the citizens in our country are most of the times reluctant to lodge a complaint of demand of bribe" and when a person goes to the anti-corruption branch, he knows it very well that it was going to cost him a lot of inconvenience and harassment.
On April 24, 2007, the complainant Shiv Kumar, whose son was then studying in eight standard in the school, filed a complaint with the anti-corruption branch alleging that Singh had offered to pass his son in the compartmental examination on payment of Rs 3,000.
A trap was laid and Singh was caught red-handed.
