Delhi court jails 13, including ex-IAS officer, in ₹4,000-cr housing scam

A Delhi court sentenced 13 people, including a former IAS officer, to jail in the ₹4,000-crore Safdarjung housing scam, calling corruption a 'cancer' that must be dealt with firmly

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A Delhi court has sentenced 13 people, including a former IAS officer, to prison terms ranging from six months to five years in connection with the Safdarjung Cooperative Group Housing Society (CGHS) scam, news agency PTI reported.

 

The case was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and involved offences such as corruption, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

 

Special Judge Prashant Sharma, while announcing the sentences, said corruption must be dealt with “an iron hand”, comparing it to a cancer that threatens the health of society.

 

Case linked to ₹4,000-crore housing scam

 

The case is part of the larger ₹4,000-crore cooperative group housing societies scandal in Delhi, which involved the fraudulent revival of defunct societies to secure subsidised land from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

 

The investigation followed a 2006 Delhi High Court order directing the CBI to probe the alleged irregularities in the functioning of cooperative housing societies.

 

According to the prosecution, former IAS officer Narender Kumar, Gopal Dixit, then registrar of cooperative societies, and BM Sethi, the then assistant registrar who died during the trial, along with other officials and members of the society, conspired to illegally revive the defunct society in 1999. They allegedly used impersonation, forgery and abuse of official position to defraud the Delhi government.   

 

Convictions and sentencing

 

The court had convicted all accused on October 13 and pronounced the sentence on October 31. Those sentenced to five years in prison include Narender Kumar, Karamvir Singh, Maha Nand Sharma, Pankaj Madan, Ahawni Sharma, Ashutosh Pant, Sudershan Tandon, Manoj Vats, Vijay Thakur, Vikas Madan and Poonam Awasthi.

 

Former RCS registrar Gopal Dixit and another accused, Narender Dheer, received two years’ imprisonment along with fines.

 

In a strongly worded order, Judge Sharma said, “Corruption is like cancer. Treatment like chemotherapy is required to cure society from it. Corruption has the capacity to cause the breakdown of our economy if it is not checked strictly.”

 

The court observed that corruption weakens the social and moral fabric, adding that it must be curbed at the earliest stage. “Unless nipped in the bud at the earliest, it is likely to cause turbulence, shaking the socio-economic-political system in an otherwise healthy and vibrant society,” the judge noted.

 

Calling corruption a “plague” that spreads like “a fire in a jungle” if left unchecked, the court said the justice system must not appear lenient in such cases. “The faith of an ordinary layman in the justice delivery system must not be shaken on account of awarding too lenient a sentence,” it added.

 

(With agency inputs)