Ex-Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitley awarded 4-year imprisonment in defence deal case, HC stays sentence

The Delhi High Court on Thursday stayed the 4-year jail sentence to former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley, hours after the quantum of punishment was pronounced by a special CBI court in a corruption case related to a 2001 defence deal. 

Jaitley and two others were sentenced to four years in jail in a corruption case related to a purported defence deal. 

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait sought the CBI response on Jaitley's appeal challenging her conviction and sentence, her lawyer said.

She has challenged the July 21 order of the trial court convicting her in the case. She was represented through senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and PP Malhotra in the Delhi High Court. 

The trio was held guilty of corruption in a 2000-01 case related to a purported defence deal. 

Special CBI Judge Virender Bhat directed the three convicts -- Jaitley, her former party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and Major General (retired) SP Murgai -- to surrender before it by 5 pm Thursday and also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each. 

On July 21, the court had convicted Jaitly, her erstwhile party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and retired Major General SP Murgai under charges of dealing with criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The court noted that Jaitly received a sum of Rs 2 lakhs through accused Gopal Pacherwal from a prosecution witness as a motive reward for agreeing to accomplish the task given to her, which was to exert personal influence upon the concerned ministers and officers in pushing the product of the company of witness into the Indian Army.

Similarly, Murgai received a sum of Rs 20,000 from the witness on January 4, 2001, in lieu of the assistance rendered by him in fulfilling the object of the conspiracy, like arranging a meeting with accused Jaya Jaitly and securing a letter of evaluation for the product of the company of witness by the exercise of personal influence upon the concerned officers, the court had observed.

In 2012, the court had framed charges against Jaitley, Gopal Pacherwal, and Murgai for corruption in the purported purchase of hand-held thermal imagers. The case had stemmed out of a sting operation aired by a news portal in January 2001.

The CBI, in its charge-sheet against the three persons filed in 2006, had alleged that the accused accepted illegal gratification from Mathew Samuel, who is a representative of company Westend International. The illegal gratification was accepted for obtaining supply orders for hand-held thermal imagers from the army, the probe agency had said. 

(With ANI Inputs)