Ex-Samata Party Chief Jaya Jaitley Awarded 4 Year Jail Term In Defence Corruption Case

Ex-Samata Party Chief Jaya Jaitley Awarded 4 Year Jail Term In Defence Corruption Case
New Delhi:  On Thursday a Delhi court awarded a 4-year jail term to former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley and two others in a 20-year-old corruption case related ti a purported defense deal.
A special CBI Judge Virender Bhat had convicted Jaitly, her former party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and Major General SP Murgai ad held them guilty of corruption and criminal conspiracy on July 26.

In the purported purchase of handheld thermal imager the three were held guilty of corruption and criminal conspiracy. In an on-camera proceeding, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on all three convicts and has directed them to surrender before it till 5 PM today.

The case stemmed from a  sting operation "Operation Westend" aired by the news portal tehelka.com in January 2001.

The sting, "operation Westend", aired by the Tehelka showed the accused purportedly accepting a bribe from the reporters of the portal, who posed as the representatives of a fictitious company, for supply orders for hand-held thermal imagers from the Indian Army.

Under the BJP led NDA government the meeting took place in the official residence of the then defense minister George Fernandes. The court in its July 21 order observed that while Jaitly accepted illegal gratification of Rs 2 lakh from Mathew Samuel, a represntative of the fictitious comapnyWestend International, Murgai received Rs 20,000.

The three accused, along with Surender Kumar Surekha who later turned an approver, were a party to the criminal conspiracy, the court held.

All the three accused Jaitly, Pacherwal and Murgai were convicted of the offense of conspiracy (Section 120-B IPC) read with Section 9 (Taking gratification, for the exercise of personal influence with public servant) of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

Also, the court held that "from the evidence lead by the prosecution it is proved beyond doubt that in the meeting in the hotel room on December 25, 2000, Surekha and Murgai assured their assistance to Samuel in procuring letter of evaluation for the product of his company from the Ministry of Defence and also to arrange a meeting between him and accused Jaya Jaitly who would provide political cover to them in this regard."

The court also observed that such kind of agreement was clearly tantamount to the offense of conspiracy". In 2006 charge sheet against the three was filed and the charges were framed in 2012.

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