7 yrs on, teacher gets 6 months in jail for graft Prafulla Marpakwar I tnn

MUMBAI: It has taken more than seven years for the law to catch up with a lecturer and his associate, who tried to extort money from a student.
The sessions court recently sent Prashant Suresh Sawant, a supervisor at the Somaiya college examination centre, and his associate Arun Kelkar to jail for six months.
The case dates back to March 2002 when Sawant stopped law student Sherali Shakil Gulkhan from entering the examination hall after he found notes on Gulkhan, who was booked for indulging in malpractices during the examination.
Later, one Arun Kelkar, claiming to be a close associate of Sawant, approached Gulkhan and told him that by paying Rs 1, 000, he could get the case dropped. Gulkhan approached the anti-corruption bureau and told them about the matter. "We trapped the accused. We presented all the evidence before the sessions court, which accepted our contention and sentenced the duo to six months' imprisonment," a senior ACB official said. "Securing conviction in this over 7-year-old case has boosted the morale of our officers," he added.
Meanwhile, ACB director general A N Roy has embarked on a new action plan to minimise corruption. "We have created beat system in the ACB. Every official in the ACB has been assigned a department and is expected to visit the said department to keep himself abreast of the happenings,'' the official said.
The official said corrupt departments have already been identified and these beat officers are expected to plug the loopholes, so that corruption can be minimised. "We are in the process of identifying such areas an use of powers by officers,'' the official said.
Secondly, it has been proposed to organise a meeting of key bureaucrats associated with the departments of revenue, forests, BMC, home, excise and sales tax. "We will ask the heads of the departments to monitor these areas,'' he said.