Delhi High court granted bail to Formeer Union Minister Sukhram

Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to former Union Communications Minister Sukhram, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in a disproportionate assets case by a lower court. Justice S Muralidhar suspended the operation of sentence till 14th May and issued notice to the CBI to file its reply on his petition challenging his conviction and sentence in the assets case. The octogenarian Congress leader was sentenced in a 13-year-old corruption case by the lower court on 24th February.
The court had then suspended his sentence for two months giving an opportunity for him to appeal in the High Court against his conviction in the case in which the CBI had seized a whopping Rs 3.61 crore in cash from his houses in Delhi and other places. He was also slapped with a Rs two lakh fine by the court which did not award him the maximum imprisonment of seven years under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI had during a raid conducted in August, 1996, seized Rs 2.45 crores in cash stashed in his bed at his official residence in Delhi and Rs.1.16 crore from his house in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and other places.