Cops to return bribe with 9% interest

SONEPAT: Eleven years ago, when SHO Gulshan Rai and assistant sub-inspector Rao Ramkumar winked at murder accused Mukesh Kumar, asking the terrified man to shell out Rs 30,000 to escape torture at the police station, they hardly knew they would one day have to actually return to the victim not just the principal amount but add interest of a healthy 9%.
In a spectacular ruling, perhaps the first of its kind, a Sonepat court has ordered both the cops to return the bribe, along with the interest, to a relieved Mukesh.
On February 16, 1998, the city police arrested Mukesh after a murder victim's kin accused him of involvement in the crime. It was during his three-day remand that Mukesh agreed to pay Rs 30,000 to Rai and Rao, his interrogators, so that he wouldn't be tortured.
But tortured he was. "Though I did as told, they still inflicted third degree on me,'' Mukesh said in his suit filed before a civil court soon after his discharge in the case on March 23, 1998.
Handing out the judgment, the court of civil judge (senior division) R P Goyal directed Rai and Rao to return the hush money to Mukesh. The court issued simultaneous directions for continuation of criminal proceedings against them. It's a different matter, though, that while Rao is already dead, Rai has retired from service.