Penalty slapped on man who moved HC to ‘expose corruption in Army’

Dahiya, president of the executive committee of Mahavir Kranti Dal (a political party), had taken voluntary retirement from the Army.

In his petition, he had claimed that in order to expose the “corruption” prevalent in the Army, he had launched a company under the name of R K Traders that supplied various equipment to the Army. He had made an assertion that his intention was not to do business but to expose the ‘racket’ in the Army and had also sought investigation into the case by the CBI.

Hearing the case on Tuesday, the Chief Justice said: “You are not working only for the sake of exposing the Army. You continued paying bribe for six years. You must be retaining some evidence. What evidence do you have that you paid the bribes?”

Thakur asked: “Why were you not able to get raids conducted by requesting the Army authorities. Who will believe you? Tomorrow you might come and say that you have paid bribe to the Army General. Satisfy us about your bona fides.”

Stating that Dahiya had left the Army and become a contractor, the Chief Justice observed, “You allegedly started bribing the Army officers. This is your version, we don’t accept it. In our opinion, you are a disgruntled contractor. You have tried to corrupt the system and wanted to benefit from it. You took a U-turn when you noticed that the contracts you were receiving had dried up.”

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that Dahiya had been writing to various senior Army officers but no action had been taken.

“You go on paying for six years without raising the issue of corruption. There is no question of paying your hard-earned money as bribe to someone when you know that the system is not responding to your complaints,” asserted the Judge.

“You are not here to expose people. You are a man whose hands are soiled. It’s like you are one of the thieves,” added the Chief Justice.

Addressing the counsel of the petitioner, the Chief Justice observed: “We are not going to look into the instance of a person who has been trying to corrupt the system and has suddenly become an angel, a patriot. He is no saint!”