Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim’s jail term in loan fraud stayed
CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Monday stayed the Special Vigilance court’s order of sentencing Congress MLA from Barabati-Cuttack, Mohammed Moquim to three years imprisonment in a loan scam case. The Vigilance court, Bhubaneswar on September 29 had convicted Moquim, former IAS officer and MD Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) Vinod Kumar and two others in connection with the loan scam.
Moquim had filed a criminal appeal challenging the propriety of the order on the ground that it was “incurably defective and suffered from gross infirmities”. The appeal further contended that the trial court failed to appreciate the evidence and materials available on record in proper perspective and passed the conviction order while the sentence was awarded without proper application of mind. “The trial court’s conclusion holding Moquim guilty is perverse and not sustainable in law,” senior advocate Pitambar Acharya argued on Moquim’s behalf.
Moquim had filed three miscellaneous case petitions for stay on sentence and grant of bail, stay on Rs 50,000 fine imposed by trial court and stay on the conviction. The single judge bench of Justice BP Routray admitted the criminal appeal, granted stay on execution of sentence and imposition of fine. Justice Routray also granted bail at Rs 1 lakh along with two sureties of like amount.
When the HC took up the plea for stay on the conviction order, the State Vigilance sought time. But Acharya pressed for urgent hearing on the matter taking into consideration the seriousness of the consequences of the conviction.
Justice Routray fixed October 13 for further consideration of the matter. On September 29, Moquim, a first-time MLA, had got instant relief and was not sent to jail after being sentenced for three years. As per law, a trial court that sentences a person to three years imprisonment can give him/her instant bail.
According to case records Moquim representing the Metro Group as the MD, had applied for a Rs 1.5 crore term loan from the ORHDC in June 2000 for an apartment project in Nayapalli area. Kumar was then the MD of ORHDC. Kumar neither placed the loan application before the board of directors nor the loan committee for approval.
Kumar allegedly showed undue favours to the real estate company and illegally disbursed the loan between July and August 2000. The Vigilance department registered a case on March 30, 2005. During investigation, the Vigilance purportedly found that the real estate company did not repay the entire loan amount. As on July 31, 2007, the company’s outstanding loan amount reached Rs 6.2 crore.
The Vigilance also came to know that the firm had availed loans from the ORHDC before and turned a defaulter once. But Moquim has claimed that he had repaid a substantial amount of the loan.