MCD official sentenced to 3 yrs jail in graft case

An MCD official has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court for conspiring and abusing his official position to facilitate two builders in raising unauthorised construction here in 2002.
Besides Rakesh Chand Jain, who was then working as MCD Assistant Engineer in Shahdara zone, district judge P S Teji also sentenced Devender Pal Sachdeva and Ashok Yadav, the owners and builders of the property where unauthorised construction was carried out, to three years in jail.
While convicting Jain, the court said he had prepared an incorrect report in official file to the effect that he had carried out demolition on the property where unauthorised construction was done but it was proved that no demolition had taken place.

"The prosecution has further established that accused Jain while posted as assistant engineer had not taken any demolition action on the unauthorised construction over the property in question and thus abused his official position as a public servant thereby facilitating his co�accused persons Sachdeva and Yadav in raising unauthorised construction and causing pecuniary advantage to them," it said.
According to the CBI, the Delhi High Court in 2006 had passed an order in a case against the engineers and officials of MCD on unauthorised construction and the probe agency was directed to investigate their nexus with the engineering department, builders as well as politicians.

The CBI had registered the case against Jain and others in August, 2007 and had alleged that despite knowing that unauthorised construction was going on over a plot in Dilshad Colony area in July 2002, Jain had not taken requisite action.
CBI had also said that being the AE of the area, it was Jain's duty to demolish the property after it was being booked by another official, but in order to facilitate his co�accused builders, he had intentionally not taken any action against the said property.