“The only way to
rid the country of corruption is to hang a few of you on the lamp post.
The law does not permit us to do it but otherwise we would prefer to hang
people like you to the lamp post”
Corrupt persons should
be hanged in public: SC
8 Mar, 2007
NEW DELHI: Bihar's fodder
scam case may be stuck in the tortuous legal process but the multi-crore
loot of public money involving influential politicians still manages to
get the judiciary's goat.
This was evident when the
bail petition of one of the government officials convicted in the case
came up before the Supreme Court.
"Everyone wants to loot this
country. The only deterrent is to hang a few corrupt persons from the lamp
post," said a Bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Markandey Katju,
which was hearing a bail petition filed by fodder scam accused Braj Bhushan
Prasad, convicted by the trial court.
Justice Katju, from whom
the remarks flowed, was aware of the limitation of the court in view of
the rule of law that governed the country. "The law does not permit us
to do it, but otherwise we would prefer to hang the corrupt," he said.
To lessen the ire of the
Bench against his client, counsel R Singh said that Prasad was a mere pawn
in the big game as he was only a budget accounts officer.
It failed to impress the
court. Justice Katju continued in the same vein and said that as budget
accounts officer, he was supposed to keep track of the spending but he
had abdicated his duties as alleged by the prosecution.
Such was the anger of the
Bench that it not only dismissed Prasad's bail plea but refused to accede
to his request for a direction to the Jharkhand High Court for early disposal
of his appeal against conviction in the fodder scam case.
Bhushan was sentenced to
five years' imprisonment by a special court in Jharkhand.
“The Supreme Court does
not have any powers to give such directions. Only in exceptional circumstances,
we may pass some direction”, the Bench observed, while declining to pass
any orders to the High Court.
|