Chandigarh, May 28:
A special CBI court in New Delhi on Friday sentenced former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala to four years of rigorous imprisonment for amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. The court also imposed a fine of ₹50 lakh and confiscation of former CM’s four properties.
While the CBI in its chargesheet filed on March 26, 2010 had calculated the extent of Chautala’s disproportionate assets (DA) to be about ₹6.09 crore (189.11%) of his income, the trial court found the former CM guilty for possessing disproportionate assets to the tune of ₹2.81 crore (103%) and convicted him.
However, Chautala would only have to undergo actual imprisonment for about two years and eight months as the court granted him the benefit under section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and set off from the four years sentence a period of about 487 days (about 16 months) of detention Chautala underwent for this particular case.
“We will file an appeal for the suspension of the sentence as well setting aside of the judgment before the Delhi high court,” Chautala’s lawyer, Harsh Kumar Sharma said.
The court quoting a Supreme court judgment said that the period of custody undergone by Chautala in the present case whether at the stage of investigation, inquiry or trial is required to be set off under section 428 of the CrPC and the period of imprisonment undergone by the convict in the junior basic training (JBT) teachers’ recruitment case when the former chief minister was on bail in this case, cannot be set off as per Section 428 and as per the SC judgment.
“Accordingly, the period, regarding which there is a specific order of taking the convict into custody pursuant to withdrawal of his bail bonds and specific order regarding his release pursuant to submission of his fresh bail bond can be set off under Section 428. Therefore, benefit under Section 428 of CrPC be given to the convict and the aforementioned period be set off from the sentence imposed by this court,’’ the CBI court said.
Special CBI judge Vikas Dhull had on May 21 convicted the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief for the offence under Section 13(1) (e) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988. Section 13 (1) (e) states that a public servant is said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct if he or any person on his behalf is in possession, or has at any time during the period of his office been in possession for which the public servant cannot satisfactorily account, of pecuniary resources or property disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The court on Friday also ordered those six properties of the former chief minister valued at about ₹2.48 crore be also confiscated. These properties included a 2.90-acre farm in Asola, New Delhi, a 2,107 sq feet flat at Hailey Road, New Delhi, a flat in sector 28, Gurugram and an 846 sq metre preferential plot in sector 4 of Mansa Devi Complex, Panchkula.
Imposing ₹50 lakh fine, the court said out of the total disproportionate assets of ₹2.81 crore, assets worth ₹2.48 have been confiscated and the balance DA of ₹32.59 lakh is required to be considered in fixing the amount of fine.
“Therefore, this court impose a fine of ₹50 lakh on the convict out of which ₹5 lakh shall be given to the CBI in defraying the expenses incurred in the prosecution and investigation,’’ the court said.
