Four dist bank officials in city given 3-yrs RI for land fraud

Bhopal: A special court, designated for trial of cases under Prevention of Corruption Act, at Bhopal sentenced three officials of District Cooperative Bank, Bhopal, including its general manager to three years of rigorous imprisonment for sale of over 4 acre land mortgaged by a farmer against loan on dirt cheap rate to a buyer in blatant violation to auction norms.

The buyer in question was also sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment.

According to special public prosecutor Hemlata Kushwaha, who appeared in the court on behalf of the prosecution, a farmer Gilldebin Sahai from Agariya village in Bhopal had mortgaged his 4.34 acre land in 1974 for loan to purchase a pump and a thresher.

After the farmer failed to pay up the debt, the bank officials including general manager Ashok mukhraiya, sales officer Harihar Prasad Mishra and cooperative inspector A P S Kushwaha in 2005 sold off the land to a man for only Rs 40,000, far less from the collector guidelines rates and market value of the land.

Special Police establishment (SPE), Lokayukta, had investigated the case and produced a charge-sheet against the accused. The sessions court of Manoj Kumar Singh on Wednesday held the accused guilty and sentenced them to three years of rigorous imprisonment each.