MCD engineers, contractors get 3-years' rigorous imprisonment for fraud

NEW DELHI: A trial court has sentenced 8 engineers of the erstwhile MCD to three years rigorous imprisonment for duping the government of several lakh rupees in collusion with private contractors who installed in fixing inferior road signage.
Special CBI Judge P S Teji also awarded three-year jail terms each to three private contractors for conniving with the MCD engineers for duping the exchequer.
The MCD officials, who were sentenced, included its executive engineer Brij Pal Singh, three assistant engineers Anil Kumar, P K Sharma and S S Arya and four junior engineers G P Sharma, Ramkesh Meena, Arun Kumar and A K Jain. The jailed private contractors included Deepak Goel of M/s Darshan construction, Subhash Chand of M/s Subhash Brothers and Ajay Verma of M/s A S constructions. The court imposed a fine of Rs one lakh each on Brij Pal, Anil Kumar and G P Sharma, who were convicted for the offence of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the IPC and various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Besides them, the court imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on P K Sharma, S S Arya, Ramkesh Meena, Arun Kumar, A K Jain, Subash Chand and Ajay Verma. Contractor Deepak Verma, who was convicted for hatching the criminal conspiracy to cheat the government, was fined Rs 25,000 by the court.
In its order, the court said the MCD engineers "conspired with accused contractors and gave false certificate to the effect that signboards installed by accused contractors Subhash Chand, Ajay Verma and Deepak Goel were as per specifications of NIT."
"The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) engineers by misusing their official positions showed favour to the accused contractors and an attempt has been made by them to cheat the government exchequer," the judge said.
The CBI had registered the case in February 2005 accusing the MCD engineers of committing bungling in installation of the road signage. The CBI had said the MCD officials and contractor Deepak Goel cheated the government to the tune of Rs 1.41 lakh while contractor Subhash Chand and Ajay Verma attempted to cheat the government of Rs 6.28 lakh.