Corruption has reached dangerous heights in India: SC

New Delhi, July 31 (UNI) The Supreme Court has ruled that corruption is an international phenomenon which has reached dangerous heights and potentialities in India.

A Bench, comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and P P Naolekar, while dismissing an appeal of a sales tax officer, N P Jharia, from Madhya Pradesh who was punished under a case of corruption, noted, ''Corruption, as such, has reached dangerous heights and potentialities. The word 'corruption' has a wide connotation and embraces almost all the spheres of our day to day life. In a limited sense, it connotes allowing decisions and actions of a person to be influenced not by rights or wrongs of a cause, but by the prospects of monitory gains or other selfish considerations.

''Avarice is a common frailty of mankind and while Robert Walpole's observation that every man has a price, may be a little generalised, yet it cannot be gainsaid that it is not far from truth. Burke cautioned 'among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot last long,' the court also noted.

Jharia was sentenced to three years imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 75,000 by a trial court for acquiring assets worth Rs 10,19,210 as disproportionate assets. The police initially filed a closure report in the court, which was accepted and the case was closed. However, in 1995, the prosecution asked for permission from the court to conduct further investigation that was granted.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court had upheld the order of the trial court but the sentence was reduced from three years to one year while the fine was maintained.

The apex court concluded by saying '' it is a strange coincidence that the prevention of the Corruption Act 1947 was enacted in the year of our country's independence. Corruption is one of the most talked about subject today in the country since it is believed to have penetrated into every sphere of activity. It is described as wholly wide spread and spectacular.'' UNI