New Delhi:
Former Telecom Minister Sukhram has been granted bail by the Delhi High Court. He was arrested on November 19 after being convicted for corruption.
The court granted him bail today on medical grounds on a surety of Rs 10 lakh.
Now 86 years old, Sukhram had joined a large list of VIPs lodged at Delhi's Tihar Jail. He had approached the High Court seeking relief, claiming that he was suffering from health problems.
The case against him dates to 1996. He has been found guilty of accepting a bribe of Rs. three lakh from a company that supplied telecom cables during his tenure as Telecom Minister in P V Narasimha Rao's cabinet.
Sukhram was held guilty of misusing his official position in giving a contract worth Rs 30 crore to private firm Haryana Telecom Limited (HTL) to supply 3.5 Lakh Conductor Kilometers (LCKM) of Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables to the telecom department.
Sukhram had been charged under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The CBI, in its chargesheet filed in 1998, had accused the former Telecom Minister of showing undue favour in awarding the cable supply contract to HTL. Sukhram had been put on trial along with HTL chairman Devinder Singh Choudhary, who died during the trial.
In 2009, Sukhram had been held guilty of possessing disproportionate assets worth Rs. 4.25 crore.
In 2002, he was awarded a three-year jail term under the Prevention of Corruption Act in a separate case relating to equipment supply for causing a loss of Rs 1.66 crore to the state exchequer. He had allegedly caused undue benefits to Rama Rao, managing director of Hyderabad-based Advance Radio Masts. He is currently out on bail.
Sukhram, a seven-time MLA and three-time MP, was expelled from the Congress after he was linked to cases of corruption.