PSU Bank official, 3 pvt persons jailed in corruption case

A senior official of Union Bank of India and three others have been sentenced to varying jail terms of two to four years for cheating and causing a loss of Rs 1.5 crore to the bank by a Delhi court, which said plunder of public exchequer cannot be permitted at any cost. The court said any attempt to cause wrongful loss to the public exchequer has to be dealt with sternly as public money was not for looting. "A clear message is to be sent to the society that plunder of public exchequer cannot be permitted at any cost as the said money belongs to people of the country and is meant for development of the nation and any attempt to cause wrongful loss to public exchequer has to be dealt with sternly," Special CBI Judge Harish Dudani said.

The court awarded four years jail term to the bank's former branch manager M C Aggarwal and Chetan Sharma, the proprietor of Delhi-based M/S Royal Sales Corporation. It also sentenced convicts Vipin Sharma and Pawan Kumar Aggarwal, proprietors of two more private firms, to two years in jail. The four convicts were held guilty for various offences including cheating, cheating by impersonation, using forged documents as genuine and criminal conspiracy under the IPC.

Aggarwal was also convicted under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The court, in its 173-page judgement, said all the convicts had entered into a conspiracy, due to which wrongful loss was caused to the public exchequer. "Although, all the convicts have pleaded for lenient view citing various reasons but sight cannot be lost of the fact that convicts had made wrongful gain from the public sector bank which was the hard-earned money of public, of which convict Aggarwal was the custodian.

"Aggarwal instead of performing his duty as a guardian of public money, plundered the public exchequer in conspiracy with other convicts and they have been benefited from the money which belonged to citizens of the country," it said. According to the CBI, a complaint was lodged by the then chief manager of the bank's Sadar Bazar branch against Chetan Sharma for cheating the institution on the basis of forged and fabricated documents and a case was lodged in January 2009.