Ghaziabad:
Neera Yadav, the former Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh, has been sentenced to four years in prison after a court found her guilty of corruption in what's referred to as the Noida land scam.
Yadav broke down after hearing the verdict against her.
Yadav was convicted of violating the rules to help a company named Flex Industries get an industrial plot in Noida in 1995 when she was the chairman of the Noida Development Authority. The chairman of Flex, Ashok Chaturvedi, was also sentenced to four years.
Yadav and Chaturvedi were sent to the Dasna District Jail. While Chaturvedi was handcuffed, Yadav was spared.
Yadav was the chief of the Noida Development Authority seven years ago. The Noida Entrepreneurs' Association filed cases against her accusing her of manipulating out-of-turn allotments to bureaucrats, politicians, industrialists and family and friends.
Yadav, the wife of a BJP politician, was appointed Chief Secretary in April 2005 when Mulayam Singh Yadav was UP's Chief Minister. She was dismissed on the orders of the Supreme Court on the basis of the multiple charges of corruption.
The CBI had earlier stated that Yadav's allotment of two plots to two different companies owned by Chaturvedi cost the government more than a crore in losses. She was accused by the CBI of changing criteria for eligibility for land to benefit Chaturvedi. CBI investigators had found that Yadav personally processed Flex's applications for land allotment.
The CBI registered the case against Yadav in February 1998 on the orders of the Supreme Court.
UFLEX (earlier called FLEX) stock tanked 20 per cent after the verdict.