MADURAI: If the homemaker spouse of a public servant is party to corruption, there would be no end to the menace. Instead, she must discourage her husband from receiving bribes, observed the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court while sentencing a former Customs superintendent and his wife to four years of rigorous imprisonment.
Justice Ramakrishnan said such spouses must also face the consequences, such as conviction and the reasonable sentence of imprisonment as her life was a bed of roses with the ill-gotten wealth. “The philosophy of life is not to take bribe. If anyone accepts bribe, he and his family will be ruined.
Once they enjoyed the ill-gotten money, they should suffer as Jesus Christ prophesied in the following phrases: ‘If you try to make a profit dishonestly, you will get your family into trouble. Don’t take bribes and you will live longer.’ The person who gets money in a dishonest manner is like a bird hatching the eggs that it did not lay. In the prime of life, he will lose his riches and in the end, he is nothing but a fool,” the judge said.
He made the observations while hearing the appeal filed by the CBI against the acquittal order by the special judge for CBI cases in Madurai in 2018 in a case booked against V Govindaswamy, the then superintendent of Customs in Thoothukudi, and his wife Geetha, in 2012.
The prosecution said that Govindaswamy amassed movable and immovable properties worth Rs 1.10 crore, which was disproportionate to his source of income, in the name of himself and his wife.
The judge stated that the trial judge erred in relying on several immaterial circumstances. The function of the criminal court is to find out the truth, and it is not the right approach to pick up the minor lapses of an investigation, irrelevant omissions and minor contradictions to acquit the accused when the ring of the truth is undisturbed from the cogent.
Considering the value of the disproportionate assets, the court imposed four years of rigorous imprisonment on the couple and also slapped a fine of Rs 75 lakh and Rs 25 lakh on them respectively.
As the counsel appearing for Govindaswamy submitted that he is scheduled to undergo eye surgery on March 24 and there is no other family member available to assist him during the operation, the court directed the Superintendent of Prison in Madurai to grant leave for twenty days for the couple from March 22 to April 10, and directed them to surrender before the prison authorities before 4 pm on April 10.