Ahmedabad, Jan 22: A former Gujarat Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pradeep Sharma, was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday in connection with a 2004 corruption case involving the allotment of land to the Welspun Group, causing a significant loss to the government exchequer.
The principal district and sessions judge, KM Sojitra, convicted Sharma under Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act for criminal misconduct by a public servant and Section 11 for obtaining an undue advantage without consideration, public prosecutor Kalpesh Goswami said.
“He was sentenced to five years in jail and fined ₹50,000 under section 13(2), and given a three-year sentence and fined ₹25,000 under section 11,” Goswami said, adding that both sentences will run concurrently.
The case stems from Sharma’s tenure as the collector of Kutch in 2004, during which he allotted a piece of land to the Welspun Group at just 25% of the prevailing market rate. The deal reportedly caused a loss of ₹1.2 crore to the government.
In return, the Welspun Group allegedly made Sharma’s wife a 30% partner in Value Packaging, one of its subsidiaries, and extended her benefits worth ₹29.5 lakh, according to case documents.
Sharma was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on September 30, 2014, for allegedly accepting a ₹29 lakh bribe from the private company in the same land deal.
Sharma is already lodged in Bhuj jail in connection with another corruption case. The court conducted a joint trial for three cases involving alleged irregularities in land allotments to the Welspun Group, Goswami said.
Sharma has been embroiled in several controversies and has faced friction with the Gujarat state government during Narendra Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister.
He also sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged snooping on a woman architect. The case, which surfaced after two news portals released CDs of purported telephonic conversations, involved Union Home Minister Amit Shah, then Gujarat’s Minister of State for Home, and two senior police officials.
The conversations, allegedly from August to September 2009, referred to a “saheb,” which the portals claimed was then Gujarat Chief Minister Modi. Amit Shah denied the allegations, dismissing them as politically motivated.
