Jail for 3 Former Coal Officials: Sinners Or Scapegoats?

In the first such instance of its kind, three senior bureaucrats including former coal secretary HC Gupta has been sentenced to jail for two years by a CBI court. Is this justice or has an "honest" officer been convicted for acts of omission rather than commission, as his IAS colleagues argue. It's not just other officers, even union minister Nitin Gadkari has told NDTV that it's troubling when officers are penalised for "honest mistakes". The larger question - should officers be sentenced when the netas who approved their decisions are not?