NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked former Union Minister Sukh Ram, convicted in a 1993 corruption case, to surrender before a trial court to serve his three-year jail term.
But Sukh Ram did not surrender before a Delhi court citing medical ground while his aides former bureaucrat Runu Ghosh and managing director of the private telecom firm P Rama Rao submitted themselves to law to serve their jail terms.After Runu Ghosh and Rama Rao surrendered before Special Judge Dharmesh Sharma, they were taken into custody and sent to jail to serve their respective two and three year terms.
A Bench comprising Justice P Sathasivam and Justice J Chelameswar, declined to interfere with the order of the Delhi High Court which had upheld Sukh Ram’s conviction and his jail term. The Bench also refused to give any relief to his accomplices Runu Ghosh and Rama Rao, and asked them to surrender to serve their sentences. The Bench said that it would hear their case only after they surrendered before a court having the competent jurisdiction.
Sukh Ram was held guilty for being part of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the state exchequer by awarding a telecom equipment supply contract to the Hyderabad-based Advanced Radio Masts, which had supplied inferior goods at a higher rate to the DoT.