Special CBI Judge Dharmesh Sharma sentenced 64-year-old Gurcharan Singh, DDA's former assistant director in its MIG (H) section of DDA, after convicting him under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
"I find that the prosecution has been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused Gurcharan demanded and accepted the bribe while the accused peon J B Joshi had accepted the bribe for and on behalf of Gurucharan in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy," the judge said, while also imposing a cost of Rs 75,000 on the convict.
The court also sentenced Gurcharan's accomplice Joshi to a year in jail, besides imposing a fine of Rs 15,000 on the DDA peon. His sentence, however, was set off against the period he remained in jail during the trial.
The case was registered by the CBI on January 4, 2008 on a written complaint by one Dalsher Singh Kataria, who said he had been allotted a DDA flat and its conveyance deed had to be executed.
Conveyance deed confers the right of ownership upon its allottee after the statutory payments, paving way for the possession of the flat by its allotee. Conveyance Deed is executed in the cases of free hold allotments only.
"For executing the sale deed, a date was supposed to be fixed by the DDA, where he met the accused Gurcharan, who told him to come on next date with a bribe of Rs 2,000 for getting an early date, for execution of conveyance deed," Kataria had said in his complaint, adding that accused told him that early date would not be given unless bribe is paid to him.
However, the CBI had arrested accused Gurucharan and his peon from DDA office at Vikas Sadan here after laying a trap.