New Delhi | Updated: September 3, 2015 08:09 AM IST
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Stating that all the convicts “willfully participated in the criminal conspiracy” causing pecuniary loss to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), a Delhi court on Wednesday sentenced five persons, including four MCD officials, to four years in jail in the Commonwealth Games (CWG) street lighting scam. The court also sentenced T P Singh, the managing director of Sweka Powertech Engineering Pvt Ltd, to six years in jail over the scam.
Awarding the first sentence in the 2010 CWG scam case, Special CBI Judge Brijesh Garg awarded four-year rigorous imprisonment each to MCD superintendent engineer D K Sugan, executive engineer O P Mahla, accountant Raju V and tender clerk Gurcharan Singh and private firm Sweka Powertech Engineering Pvt Ltd’s director J P Singh.
They had earlier been found guilty on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery for purpose of cheating and were also charged under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
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“The documentary evidence on record has established, beyond a shadow of doubt, that all the accused persons have willfully participated in the criminal conspiracy with a common object to increase the quoted amount in the tender document of accused Sweka Powertech Engineers Pvt Ltd … thereby causing undue pecuniary loss to the MCD and corresponding pecuniary gain to accused,” the court observed.
It added that change in the quoted rate has caused a “pecuniary loss” of Rs.1.15 crore to the MCD.
“In this case, the allegations proved against the convicts are quite serious in nature. They had conspired together and had cheated the MCD for forging the tender documents, a valuable security, and have also forged the tender opening register,” the judge said.
In the present case, a tender was floated by the corporation for a 101.56-km stretch of road, whose contract was bagged by Sweka Engineering in 2008.
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Meanwhile, the court has slapped a fine of Rs 70,000 on the firm and Rs 30,000 each on the MCD officials, Rs 42,000 on T P Singh and Rs 22,000 on J P Singh. The court has observed that the prosecution witnesses have given a “trustworthy and consistent narration of the tender-opening process” and the subsequent corrections of itemwise rates, in the tender document of Sweka Powertech Engineers Pvt Ltd by its director Singh.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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