E-Paper
Disproportionate assets case: Ex-engineer with Chandigarh admn, wife sentenced to three years in jail
Had amassed illegal assets worth over ₹79 lakh between 1987 and 2010
A special CBI court here has sentenced a former UT assistant engineer and his wife to three years’ rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹85 lakh on them in a 2010 disproportionate assets case.
Rajesh Chadha and his wife Manju Chadha, who was a former senior assistant in the Punjab Secretariat, Chandigarh, were held guilty under Section 13 (1)(e) punishable under Section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, for amassing illegal assets worth over ₹79 lakh.
They were granted bail by the court of Sushil Kumar Garg, special judge, CBI, after furnishing bail bonds of ₹50,000 each.
As the convicts intend to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court to appeal against the judgment, the CBI court granted them time till April 11 to file the appeal, failing which they need to surrender.
“To enable the convicts, Rajesh Chadha and Manju Chadha, to prefer an appeal, they are granted time till April 11 subject to furnishing of bail bonds of ₹50,000 each with one surety in the like amount, with an undertaking to appear in court on that day and produce order of the high court, failing which they shall surrender in court to undergo the sentence,” the court order read.
WAS ALSO CAUGHT FOR GRAFT
On July 13, 2009, Rajesh was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of ₹70,000. During investigation of this case, he and his wife were found to have acquired disproportionate assets. Acting on the report of a CBI inspector, who investigated the graft case, the couple was booked on March 26, 2010.
The illegal assets were mainly in the shape of savings certificate scheme Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) worth ₹66 lakh; numerous fixed deposit receipts (FDRs), monthly investment schemes and Public Provident Fund accounts; and saving bank accounts, which held assets way over the couple’s known sources of income between 1987 and 2010.
