IPOH, July 20 — A 37-year-old unemployed man pleaded not guilty at the Sessions Court here to the charge of offering a bribe amounting to RM350 to a police officer on July 13.

The accused, R. Lingeswaran, made the plea in front of Judge S. Indra Nehru after the charge was read in Tamil.

He was charged with one count of bribing a government agent, sergeant Som Nek Euat, who is attached to the traffic enforcement divison in Taiping Police District Headquarters, as an inducement to not take any legal action against him.

He was accused of committing the offence near Jalan Tupai in Taiping at around 9.20pm last Monday.

He was charged under Section 17(b) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 and punishable under Section 24(1) of the same act, if convicted.

The punishment under Section 2 (1) carries imprisonment not more than 20 years and fined not less than five times the value of the bribe or RM10,000, whichever is higher.

MACC deputy public prosecutor Nurul Wahida Jalaluddin appeared for the prosecution while the accused was not represented.

Earlier, Nurul Wahida told the court to not allow bail for the accused, stating that he is a psychiatric patient.

"I request the court to not allow bail and send the accused to hospital to check his mental condition,” she said.

Indra Nehru then ordered Lingeswaran to be sent to the Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta for mental health inspection for a period of one month.

The case has been fixed August 19 for mention.