The Delhi High Court has put on hold the 4-year jail term given to former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitley in a corruption case related to a purported defence deal, a lawyer said. The high court has sought CBI’s response on Jaya Jaitley’s appeal challenging her conviction and sentence in the case.
Earlier today, a Delhi court had sentenced Jaya Jaitley and two others to 4 years in prison for corruption in a 2000-01 case related to a purported defence deal.
Special CBI judge Virender Bhat also gave a 4-year jail term to Jaya Jaitley’s former party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and Major General (retd) SP Murgai in the case, Maj Gen Murgai’s advocate Vikram Panwar said.
In the sting operation, Ms. Jaitly was shown to have accepted ₹2 lakh from Mathew Samuel, who represented a non-existing firm named Westend International. The retired Major General received ₹20,000.
On December 25, 2000, the retired Army officer and Surender Kumar Surekha, who later turned an approver, agreed to help Mr. Samuel in securing a letter of evaluation from the Defence Ministry for the company’s hand-held thermal imagers. They also said that they would introduce him to Ms. Jaitly in lieu of monetary consideration.
During the meeting with Ms. Jaitly on December 28, 2000, which happened at the official residence of the then Defence Minister George Fernandes, Mr. Samuel offered ₹2 lakh to her. She asked him to hand over the money to Mr. Pacherwal, and assured him of her help.
