RAIPUR: In a 25-year-old case, the Chhattisgarh High Court has acquitted a sub-engineer “wrongly” convicted of accepting Rs 1,000 as bribe for the valuation of work undertaken under Jivan Dhara Yojana for irrigation purposes in Manendragarh.The appellant in the high court R P Kashyap, now an assistant engineer, was trapped in the raid by the police following a complaint by one Prem Mishra with the office of SP Lokayukta in Bilaspur alleging that the officer was asking for a bribe amount of Rs 1,000 for releasing the third and final instalment. Mishra after giving the currency notes at the residence of Kashyap, then posted as sub-engineer in Janpad panchayat Manendragarh, got the trap team of police to seize the amount and charges were framed against Kashyap.Later the trial court (of first additional sessions judge) in Ambikapur convicted him under the prevention of corruption act 1988 and sentenced him to three years of rigorous imprisonment and Rs 3,000 as fine. The lawyers appearing in the high court for the appellant Kashyap, who is on bail, claimed the trial court had wrongly convicted their client as there was insufficient evidence on record to prove the tainted money was accepted as illegal gratification.The defence taken by the appellant is that the complainant had left a sum of Rs 800 with him and at the latter’s request, Kashyap had sent 1,500 bricks and five bags of cement in a tractor to Mishra’s house. The cost of the bricks and the cement sent was Rs 1,975 out of which Rs 800 was already received by the appellant.
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