CWG street lights: Court to announce sentence on September 2

New Delhi, September 1 : A court here on Tuesday reserved its order on pronouncing the quantum of sentence in Commonwealth Games (CWG) street lights case after the CBI requested it to award maximum punishment to the four convicts. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Brijesh Garg fixed Wednesday for delivering his order on quantum of sentence after the prosecution and defence counsel concluded their arguments. The court on Monday convicted the four officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) — then superintending engineer D.K. Sugan, then executive engineer O.P. Mahala, then accountant Raju V. and then tender clerk Gurcharan Singh. It also held guilty Sweka Power Tech Engineers Pvt. Ltd. and its director J.P. Singh and maging director T.P. Singh. The CBI public prosecutor Praneet Sharma told court that the lenient view could not be taken against the convicts, as they were involved in a corruption case related to the CWG.

Prosecutor Sharma requested the court to award maximum punishment to convicts for their misdeeds. However, defence counsel of convicts sought leniency in sentence contending that they were having clean antecedents and had already spent around 11 months in jail during the trial. Sugan’s counsel told the court that his client is 52 years old and a diabetic patient. He has to take care of his 78-year-old paralysed father and other members of family. While Mahala told court that he has a clean record in the department, adding no enquiry against her is pending in the MCD. Mahala has also received appreciation award in a slaughter house project, the defence counsel said. Advocate P. K. Dubey, appearing for 53-year-old T.P. Singh and 48-year-old J. P. Singh, claimed that his clients suffered loss in the project and requested to release them by awarding the sentence that he had already undergone during judicial custody.

This is the first case relating to the CWG irregularities case which has been decided by the court. According to the CBI chargesheet filed on July 28, 2011, the accused entered into a crimil conspiracy for upgrading street lights in view of the Commonwealth Games in October 2010 and awarded it to a private firm by manipulating tender documents. This caused undue pecuniary loss of over Rs.1.42 crore to the government, it said. The CBI also charge-sheeted Mehul Karnik, an employee of Philips India Pvt. Ltd. as an accused in the case, but he was later discharged. The CBI registered a case on charges of cheating, crimil conspiracy and other related charges under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Four MCD officials were held guilty of crimil conspiracy and cheating under the Indian Pel Code. The company and its directors were convicted for offences dealing with crimil conspiracy, cheating and forgery. (IANS)