A court in Kutch district, Gujarat, sentenced former IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to five years of rigorous imprisonment on Saturday in connection with a 2011 case involving irregularities in the allotment of government land to a private company, which resulted in a loss to the public exchequer. Sharma, who was the district collector at the time, was found guilty of wrongdoing related to the 2004 land allocation to Saw Pipes Pvt Ltd.
The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Bhuj also sentenced urban planner Natubhai Desai, former mamlatdar Narendra Prajapati, and former resident deputy collector Ajitsinh Zala to five years in prison each, imposing a fine of Rs 10,000 on each of them. The case pertains to the allotment of government land to the company in 2004 when Sharma was the collector of Kutch.
The court stated that Sharma’s sentence would begin only after he completes a separate five-year sentence handed down by a sessions court in Ahmedabad on January 20 this year for a corruption case from 2004.
An FIR was filed against Sharma and three others in 2011 by CID Crime Rajkot zone under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 217 (a public servant disobeying the law) of the Indian Penal Code.
Pradeep Sharma was arrested on March 4, 2011, in connection with the case. Special public prosecutor HB Jadeja revealed that the court considered 52 pieces of documentary evidence and the testimonies of 18 prosecution witnesses during the trial.
According to the prosecution, Sharma was involved in irregularities while allotting land to Saw Pipes Pvt Ltd for setting up an industrial unit. These actions violated state government rules and regulations, leading to a financial loss for the public exchequer. Specifically, the land allotment exceeded the permissible cap of 2 hectares, violating a Gujarat government Revenue Department resolution from June 6, 2003, which allowed collectors to grant up to 2 hectares of land for industrial purposes.
The prosecution argued that Sharma exceeded his authority and ignored the state government’s directives, intending to financially benefit the company while causing a loss to the government. The other three accused were said to have conspired with Sharma during a District Land Valuation Committee meeting and acted in collusion to facilitate the illegal allotment.
(PTI inputs)