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New Delhi:
Former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly and two others have been convicted by a courtroom in New Delhi in an almost 20-year-old graft case associated to a purported defence deal that stemmed from a sensational sting operation by Tehelka information portal.
Special CBI choose Virender Bhat held Jaitly, her former social gathering colleague Gopal Pacherwal and Major General (retired) SP Murgai responsible of corruption and prison conspiracy.
The sting, ”Operation Westend”, was aired by Tehelka in January 2001 by which the accused purportedly accepted bribe from reporters of the the portal, who posed as representatives of a fictitious firm, for provide orders for hand-held thermal imagers from the military.
The conferences passed off within the official residence of the then defence minister George Fernandes.
In its July 21 order, the courtroom noticed that whereas Ms Jaitly accepted unlawful gratification of Rs 2 lakh from Mathew Samuel, a consultant of the fictional firm Westend International, Mr Murgai obtained Rs 20,000.
The three accused, together with Surender Kumar Surekha who later turned an approver, have been a celebration to the prison conspiracy, the courtroom held.
All the three accused – Ms Jaitly, Mr Pacherwal and Mr Murgai – have been convicted of the offence of conspiracy (Section 120-B IPC) learn with Section 9 (Taking gratification, for train of non-public affect with public servant) of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
The courtroom is scheduled to listen to arguments on quantum of sentence on July 29.
The courtroom held that “from the evidence lead by the prosecution it is proved beyond doubt that in the meeting in the hotel room on December 25, 2000 Surekha and Murgai assured their assistance to Samuel in procuring letter of evaluation for the product of his company from the Ministry of Defence and also to arrange a meeting between him and accused Jaya Jaitly who would provide political cover to them in this regard.”
It was agreed that Samuel would pay a sum of Rs. 1 lakh every to Surekha and Murgai and a sum of Rs 2 lakh to accused Jaitly on this regard, the order stated.
“Thus there had been an agreement between them to obtain the evaluation letter for the concerned product by illegal means i.e. by resorting to corruption and personal influence upon the concerned officials,” the courtroom stated.
The courtroom noticed that “such kind of agreement was clearly tantamount to offence of conspiracy”.
Thereafter, Surekha contacted Pacherwal and roped him within the conspiracy, it stated. “Accordingly, Pacherwal arranged the said meeting for December 28, 2000. He too was present in the said meeting in the room of Ms Jaitly along with Surekha, Samuel and Murgai.
“In that assembly, which passed off within the official residence of the then Union Minister for Defence, George Fernandes, Samuel was launched to Jaitly as a businessman whose firm intends to enter the market of defence procurement.
“Samuel offered the sum of Rs 2 lakh to Jaitly who instructed him to handover the money to Pacherwal and accordingly, the money was received by accused Pacherwal knowing that it was bribe money.
“In lieu thereof, Jaitly assured Samuel that in case the product of his firm will not be thought-about, she would intervene by making a request to ”Sahib” (purportedly Fernandes) to ship a phrase to the involved officer on this regard,” the judge observed.
Therefore, both the accused Pacherwal and Jaitley, having joined the conspiracy at a later point of time with the knowledge about the object and having agreed to perform the task assigned to them towards its fulfilment, are also guilty of the offence of conspiracy, the court said.
It said. “Jaitly obtained a sum of Rs 2 lakhs by way of Pacherwal from Samuel as a motive/reward for agreeing to perform the duty given to her i.e. to exert private affect upon the involved Ministers/ Officers in pushing the product of the corporate of Samuel into the Indian Army.”
Similarly, Mr Murgai received a sum of Rs 20,000 from Samuel on January 4, 2000 for the assistance rendered by him in arranging a meeting with Ms Jaitly and securing letter of evaluation for the product of the company by exercise of personal influence upon the concerned officers, the court noted.
“Therefore, each of them have dedicated offence envisaged underneath Section 9 of the PC Act,” it stated.
Ms Jaitly, who was Fernandes” shut aide, resigned as Samata Party chief following the graft allegations.
The cost sheet towards the three was filed in 2006 and the costs have been framed in 2012.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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