4 MCD officials, 2 others get jail terms in a CWG case

A Delhi court today sentenced five persons, including four MCD officials, to four years jail term each and the managing director of a firm to six years in prison in the first conviction in a 2010 Commonwealth Games scam case.

The case relates to CWG street lighting scam which had caused a loss of Rs 1.4 crore to the exchequer.

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 the civic body's tender clerk Gurcharan Singh and private firm Sweka Powertech Engineering Pvt Ltd's Director J P Singh.

These five convicted persons were sentenced for various offences including criminal conspiracy, cheating and using forged documents as genuine of IPC and section 13(1)(d) (criminal misconduct by public servant by corrupt means and abusing position) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The court also jailed the firm's Managing Director T P Singh to six years for the offences of cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery of valuable security, forgery for purpose of cheating, using forged documents as genuine under IPC and Section 13(1)(d)(criminal misconduct by public servant by corrupt means and abusing position) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

"In this case, the allegations proved against the convicts are quite serious in nature. They had conspired together and had cheated the MCD/GNCTD for forging the tender documents, a valuable security, and have also forged the tender opening register," the judge said.

The firm was fined of Rs 70,000 by the court which also slapped a fine of Rs 30,000 each on the MCD officials, Rs 42,000 on T P Singh and Rs 22,000 on J P Singh.

All the six convicted persons were present in the court at the time of pronouncement of the order.

During the arguments on the quantum of sentence, CBI prosecutor Praneet Sharma had contended that the convicts had caused a loss of over Rs 1.42 crore to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and maximum punishment of seven years should be awarded to them.

The advocates appearing for the convicts, however, had sought leniency from the court. Advocate P K Dubey, representing 53-year-old T P Singh and 48-year-old J P Singh, had pleaded that they be released taking into account the period already spent by them behind bars, claiming it was they who had suffered loss and not MCD.