New Delhi: A Delhi court has sentenced 81-year-old former IAS official to 5-year rigorous imprisonment for illegal possession of arms in a 32-year-old case holding him guilty of "deliberate, calculated manipulation of the system".
Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Anu Aggarwal convicted Surender Singh Ahluwalia and also imposed fine of Rs 1.50 lakh on him.
"The convict is guilty of deliberate, calculated manipulation of the system he enjoyed a supreme position in. He, being a serving IAS officer, was duty bound to uphold the rule of law but he acted in contrary and purchased weapons in contravention of Arms Act and that too on the basis forgery in the arms Licence of which he was aware of being forged," the judge said.
The CBI had filed a case on August 31, 1987 against Ahluwalia, then posted as Secretary and Commissioner, Labour and Employment, Nagaland, for the possession of arms and ammunition beyond permission limits.
Five guns including a carbine and a Czechoslovakian rifle besides 328 bullets were recovered from his homes in Delhi and Kohima during a search carried out by the agency in connection with a case of disproportionate assets against him.
Ahluwalia was a serving IAS officer and was working as Financial Commissioner in the State of Nagaland in year 1980, when offence was committed. He came under probe for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets which including air-conditioned cinema house, property in posh areas of Delhi, Gwalior and Chandigarh.
The court convicted him under sections 417 (punishment for cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act. CBI had sought maximum punishment for Ahluwalia saying that the offence was committed by the convict when he was serving as IAS Officer in Nagaland.
The IAS officer is the part of the executive limb of the government and he is duty bound to know and to execute the law which convict has failed to do so, the agency said.
Ahluwalia, however, sought lenient view on the ground that he is 81 years old and is suffering from Fibrotic Sarcodosis. In this disease the lungs gets squeezed and the person needs dirt free environment.
His lawyer also submitted that neither the Nagaland government nor CBI was serious in prosecuting him as the state government had withdrawn the consent given to CBI to prosecute him and CBI never arrested him.
The court, however, said that Ahluwalia was clearly in the knowledge that his acts would lead to corrosion of the very institution of the government from within.
"Taking a lenient view of the convict's covert corrupt practices will not only rob this court of its sanctity, but will also lead to public derision of the very concept of rule of law," it said.
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