New Delhi: Sending a strong warning to the government employees involved in corruption, the Delhi High Court has ruled that "leniency or sympathy" should not be
shown to such officials.
Rejecting a petition challenging the Labour Court's order which upheld the dismissal of a DTC bus conductor from the service in 2000, Justice Kailash Gambhir said, "No leniency or sympathy can be shown to a person who indulges himself in
corruption even at a small level and by all means, corruption
has to be checked and nipped in the bud".
"...The Conductor on duty can only indulge in corruption
at a small level and one can not expect him to mis-appropriate
amount of thousands and lakhs of rupees as his job is to issue
tickets and non-issuance of the same can only result into
pocketing small amounts on daily basis," Justice Gambhir said.
"By that process alone, his daily and monthly earnings
sometimes may be more than his official income...," he added.
The order came on a petition filed by Shanti Devi on
behalf of her husband, who died during the pendency of the
case in 2005, challenging the Labour Court's order upholding
his dismissal order in 2007.
"The petitioner is bound to suffer because of the corrupt
deeds of her husband. The past clean record of the deceased
would also be of no help to her as the solitary act of
corruption will be sufficient enough to award punishment of
dismissal from service," the court said.
In December 2000, the checking staff had found that the
conductor had collected Rs 12 each from two passengers but
they were not issued any ticket. On interrogation, the
passengers had revealed that they had paid the amount to the
conductor.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, April 04, 2010, 09:55