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Sukh Ram is guilty
WSN Network
New Delhi:
Corruption in India got a grand visual recall when sleths found
crores of currency notes stashed in the house of former Indian
communications minister Sukhram. The scandal hit India in 1996 at
the peak of a telecom revolution that had left the world gasping.
Now, thirteen years after CBI found that Sukh Ram amassed Rs 4.25
crore of illegal wealth, a trial court last Friday convicted the
82-year-old politician. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years
imprisonment.
Special CBI
judge V K Maheshwari is likely to pronounce the sentence on February
24 in the historic case in which former Prime Minister P V Narasimha
Rao had deposed against his minister.
The case of Sukh
Ram, ironically also seen as the minister who kicked off
India’s
telecom revolution, had shocked the nation in 1996, when cash worth
crores were found stashed in different places of the minister’s
house during a CBI raid.
Sukh Ram has of
course claimed that he was falsely implicated and will appeal in the
high court. Since the case took 13 years in the trial court and Sukh
Ram wants to go to high court, it is clear that the case will not be
decided in his lifetime. The situation maks it clear how easy it was
for the powerful to get away at a time when lack of accountability
and transparency are major casualties in politics.
25
February 2009
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