Convicted officials can't hold office: SC

new delhi: in a significant judgment, the supreme court has ruled that a public servant convicted of corruption should not hold office till he is exonerated by a superior court. "it is necessary that the court should not aid the public servant, who stands convicted of corruption charges, to hold public office until he is exonerated after ... a judicial adjudication at the appellate or revisional level," a bench comprising justice k t thomas and justice s n variava said.the judgment was delivered on the appeal of a public servant who was dismissed from service following his conviction by a trial court. he was seeking suspension of his conviction so that he could rejoin his office during pendency of his appeal. dismissing the appeal, the bench said that he could rejoin work but the court should not aid a public servant, convicted of corruption, to hold any public office without being exonerated. the court noted that corruption by public servants has acquired a "monstrous dimension" and its "tentacles have started gripping even the institutions created for the protection of the republic". "unless those tentacles are intercepted... through strong legislative, executive as well as judicial exercises, the corrupt public servants could even paralyse the functioning of such institutions and thereby hinder democratic polity," the bench warned. proliferation of corrupt public servants could "garner momentum to cripple the social order if such men were allowed to continue to manage and operate public institutions", the bench said. "when a public servant is found guilty of corruption after a judicial adjudicatory process conducted by a court of law, judiciousness demands that he should be treated as corrupt until he is exonerated by a superior court," the bench said. mere entertainment of an appeal by an appellate court against conviction should not even temporarily absolve the convicted public servant of the findings of the trial court, the court added. "if such a public servant becomes entitled to hold public office and to do official acts until he is judicially absolved from such findings by reason of suspension of the order of conviction, it is the public interest which suffers." the court said that the conviction of a public servant should not be stayed by an appellate court, even though the sentence awarded to him could be suspended during the hearing of an appeal against the trial court order. the bench explained that "when the conviction is on a corruption charge against a public servant, the appellate court or the revisional court should not suspend the order of conviction during the pendency of the appeal even if the sentence of imprisonment is suspended". "when a public servant, convicted of corruption, is allowed to continue to hold public office, it would impair the morale of the others manning such offices and, consequently, would erode the already-shrunk confidence of the people in such public institutions, besides demoralising the other honest public servants," the court added.