Bribe case: Retired tahsildar receives one year imprisonment

Mangaluru: Bantwal taluk retired tahsildar T N Narayan Rao has been sentenced to one year imprisonment and fined a penalty of Rs 10,000 by the Lokayukta Special Court for demanding and accepting bribe.

Rao had demanded Rs 3,000 from Satish Prabhu to get the gun license transferred from his name to his son’s name on February 10, 2012. When he accepted Rs 2,000 from Prabhu, the then Mangaluru Lokayukta inspector Dileep Kumar and team raided the tahsildar’s office and arrested him red handed. They also found and seized Rs 85,000 in Rao’s possession during the same occasion.

Mangaluru Lokayukta Special Court investigated the case and special public prosecutor K S N Rajesh argued on behalf of the prosecution. Eventually, the court found the accused guilty of the charges.

The sentence

Lokayukta Special Court judge B Muralidhar Pai sentenced Rao to one year simple imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 10,000 under section 7 (a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and one year simple imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine under Section 13 (1) D of the Act. Failure to pay the fines will attract an additional three more months of simple imprisonment.

The accused has been asked to produce valid documents for the seized Rs 85,000 during the raid on failure of which, the amount will be handed over to the government.

The charge sheet was filed by the then Lokayukta inspector Dileep Kumar and the retired tahsildar is currently retired is settled in Yelahanka in Bengaluru.