Two Customs officials convicted for graft

A special CBI court has convicted two Customs officials on charges of graft. The convicts are Srinivas Prasad, Superintendent of Customs and Lourd Prabhu, head hawaldar. Both were posted at the Kempegowda International Airport in Devanahalli.

Special judge for CBI cases Shivaram K sentenced the convicts to four years of simple imprisonment and levied a penalty of Rs 30,000 on Prasad and Rs 15,000 on Prabhu.

The prosecution case was that the Customs officials had intercepted the complainant with 15 laptops when he landed from Singapore in 2015. Prasad demanded a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to release the laptops since there were no proper documents.

After negotiations, the superintendent scaled down the demand to Rs 50,000. Since the complainant requested for some time to arrange the money, the superintendent retained the boarding pass, e-visa and other documents, including the passport. He, however, let the complainant go out of the airport along with the laptops.

The complainant had recorded the demand for bribe on his mobile phone and went to the CBI office to lodge a complaint. The CBI police laid a trap and arrested both Prasad and Prabhu, while receiving the bribe amount.

The complainant was not examined as a witness before the court, since he passed away during the pendency of the case in 2018. However, he had given a statement under Section 164 of the CrPC before the magistrate.