A court in Gujarat’s Kutch district has sentenced former IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to 5 years of rigorous imprisonment for his role in a 2011 case involving irregularities in government land allotment that led to losses to the public exchequer.
The judgment was delivered on Saturday by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate J.V. Buddha in Bhuj. Alongside Sharma, three other government officials — urban planner Natubhai Desai, former mamlatdar Narendra Prajapati, and former resident deputy collector Ajitsinh Zala — received identical sentences and fines of ₹10,000 each.
Case Background
The case dates back to 2004, when Sharma, then Collector of Kutch, allegedly bypassed established procedures to allot government land to Saw Pipes Pvt Ltd for setting up an industrial unit. The land allocation exceeded the permissible limit of two hectares — the maximum a district collector is authorized to allot under a Gujarat Revenue Department resolution dated June 6, 2003.
The charges, framed under IPC sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 217 (public servant disobeying legal direction), were filed in an FIR registered by CID Crime, Rajkot Zone, in 2011. Sharma was arrested on March 4 of that year.
Court’s Observations & Evidence
Special Public Prosecutor H.B. Jadeja said the court relied on 52 pieces of documentary evidence and testimony from 18 prosecution witnesses. The prosecution argued that Sharma willfully violated government regulations to benefit the private firm, causing significant financial damage to the state.
The court noted that Sharma’s actions — and those of his co-accused during District Land Valuation Committee meetings — constituted a criminal conspiracy intended to favor the company. The land was allotted without seeking required approval from the state government, which the court saw as a deliberate overreach of authority.
Additional Sentence
This latest conviction comes on the heels of another five-year sentence handed to Sharma by an Ahmedabad sessions court earlier this year in a separate 2004 corruption case. Saturday’s ruling mandates that Sharma begin serving this new sentence only after completing the one previously imposed.
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