A court in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district has awarded four years' rigorous imprisonment to an executive engineer of the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department for manipulating a tender process.
The court also sentenced a contractor to two years' RI in the case.
Special Judge (Prevention of Corruption Act) Geeta Neware convicted executive engineer Karan Singh Karsoliya and contractor Sudhir Patel, and awarded them RI for four years and two years, respectively.
In the order Thursday evening, she also imposed a fine of Rs 1.10 lakh on Karsoliya and Rs 10,000 on Patel, said Additional Public Prosecutor A K Shrivastav.
A tender was floated in July 2014 for water purification work worth Rs 21.31 lakh under Jal Praday Yojna of the PHE department in Raigarh district, he said.
Karsoliya hatched a conspiracy with Patel to ensure that the latter got the contract. For government records, he got printed an entire newspaper in which the tender advertisement was placed.
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The advertisement did not reach other potential bidders as the newspaper was fake and Patel, the sole bidder, got the contract.
Following a complaint, District Collector ordered inquiry, and a police case was registered in August 2016 at Chakradharnagar police station.
The duo were convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 467 (forgery).