New Delhi, April 22 (Inditop) The Delhi High Court Wednesday granted interim bail to former union communications minister Sukhram, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in a disproportionate assets case.
Justice S. Muralidhar suspended the sentence till May 14 and issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file its reply on Sukhram’s petition challenging his conviction and sentence in the case.
He was sentenced in a 13-year-old corruption case by the city court in February this year. Sukhram, who was a cabinet minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao-led government, is accused of amassing disproportionate assets between 1991 and 1996.
The court had also ordered forfeiture of Rs.42.5 million disproportionate assets amassed during his tenure as cabinet minister.
The court had then suspended his sentence for two months giving an opportunity for him to appeal in the High Court against his conviction in the case in which the CBI had seized a whopping Rs.36.1 million in cash from his houses in Delhi and other places.
The CBI, during a raid conducted in August 1996, seized Rs.24.5 million in cash hidden in his bed at his official residence in Delhi and Rs.11.6 million from his house in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and other places.
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