KOTA: ACB-Kota on Wednesday convicted a retired Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) officer and three others, two of them government employees in Kota Nagar Nigam, to seven years of imprisonment in a 21-year-old graft case.
The court also slapped a fine of Rs 21 lakh on the four convicts. Cases against four other graft accused were dropped due to their deaths during the trial. “If public servants turn corrupt, the roots of a democratic nation also weaken and affect the development as the public servants, in any form of democratic system of governance, bear the responsibility of execution,” the ACB court observed while delivering the judgment on Wednesday.
The four convicted persons were Kanhaiya Lal Meena, an RAS officer holding significant charge in Kota Municipal Corporation (KMC) in 2002, Babbu Gupta, then junior engineer, Jagannnath, a clerk in KMC, and Hari Singh, a resident of Kota, assistant director prosecution (ADP), ACB court, Kota Ashok Kumar Joshi said.
The four other accused were Aslam Sher, alias Mohammad Aslam, proprietor of a printing press, Jagan Prasad, then office superintendent at KMC, Lalit Singh, office assistant, and Sattu, alias Satya Prakesh.
On a report by then ASP of Kota city, Yaspal Sharma, ACB-Kota had lodged a case in 2002 against eight persons under sections of anti-corruption Act and Sections 420, 466, 467, 468, 471, 120 (B) of IPC for purchase and sale of government land through fabricated forged documents and for causing loss to government revenue, he said.