Chronic Corruption Hampered India's Pursuit Of Economic Dynamism: Special Court

Chronic corruption has severely hampered India's ardent pursuit of economic dynamism, a special CBI court said here on Wednesday while convicting a former top BSNL officer in a disproportionate assets case.

Special Judge Namrita Aggarwal convicted RPS Panwar, a former General Manager of BSNL posted in Muradabad, Uttar Pradesh, of amassing assets "highly disproportionate" to his known sources of income.

The judge also convicted Panwar's wife Laxmi Devi, sons Mukesh Kumar Panwar and Dinesh Kumar Panwar, and chartered accountant Gyan Prakash Agarwal for abetting the offence.

"Corruption is a vice of insatiable avarice for self-aggrandizement by the unscrupulous, taking unfair advantage of their power and authority and those in public office also, in breach of the institutional norms... Chronic corruption has severely hampered India's ardent pursuit of economic dynamism," the judge said.

She added corruption encourages defiance of the rule of law and the propensities for "easy materialistic harvests, whereby the society's soul stands defiled and devalued".

"In this scenario one begins to wonder whether we are the same who rode to freedom with truth and sacrifice as our moto," she said.

She added by adopting a holistic approach in the process of anti-corruption reform, a country can build its capacity to curtail corruption to a large extent, "but none of this can be tackled without enlightened and determined masses and without a motivated and well led public and private sector".

The judge convicted Panwar of the offence of corruption, noting that he acquired disproportionate assets amounting to Rs 1.63 crore during the check period April 1, 1999 to September 16, 2003 which he could not satisfactorily account for even after completion of evidence.

The court will hear the arguments on quantum of sentence on February 13

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