Corruption sole factor arresting progress of society: Guj HC

AHMEDABAD: Corruption was undeniably the sole factor that has effectively arrested the progress of our society, Gujarat High Court observed while rejecting bail plea of IAS officer Pradeep Sharma, arrested in connection with irregularities in land allotment for 2001 earthquake affected persons in Kutch.

"It is the rampant corruption indulged in with impunity by highly placed persons that has led to economic unrest in this country," Justice J B Pardiwala observed while rejecting Sharma's bail plea on Thursday.

"If one is asked to name one sole factor that effectively arrested the progress of our society to prosperity, undeniably it is corruption," he said.

"If the society in a developing country faces a menace greater than even the one from the hired assassins to its law and order, then that is from the corrupt elements at higher echelons of the Government and of the political parties," Justice Pardiwala observed in his order.

"Corruption has, in it, very dangerous potentialities. Corruption, a word of wide connotation has, in respect of almost all the spheres of our day to day life, all the world over, the limited meaning of allowing decisions and actions to be influenced not by the rights or wrongs of a case but by the prospects of monetary gains or other selfish considerations," he said.