Supreme Court grants interim bail to Sukh Ram

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today granted interim bail till January 16 to former Union Minister Sukh Ram who had surrendered and had been sent to jail to serve a three-year term in connection with a telecom scam in 1993.

A bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam also granted interim bail to former bureaucrat Runu Ghosh and Hyderabad-based businessman P Rama Rao who are co-accused in the case.

The bench had, on January 5, refused to entertain their appeal against the Delhi High Court's order convicting them in the scam and awarded a jail term of three years for Sukh Ram and Rao and two years of imprisonment for Ghosh.

The bench had said that it would hear their plea only after they complied with the high court's order and surrendered before a trial court to undergo sentence. Thereafter, Ghosh and Rao had surrendered on the same day.

Sukh Ram initially evaded surrendering on health grounds saying he was hospitalised but two days after he appeared in the trial court, he was sent to jail.

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Earlier on December 21 last year, the high court had upheld the lower court's 2002 judgement holding Sukh Ram, Ghosh and Rao guilty of being part of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the state exchequer by awarding a telecom equipment supply contract to Hyderabad's Advanced Radio Masts which had supplied inferior goods at a higher rate to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Sukh Ram was telecom minister between January 18, 1993 and May 16, 1996, in the Narasimha Rao government.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed the chargesheet in March 1997, accusing Sukh Ram and Ghosh of entering into a criminal conspiracy with Rao.

Subsequent to the registration of various cases, the CBI, in 1996, had seized Rs 3.6 crore in cash which was concealed in bags and suitcases from Sukh Ram's residence.

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(With PTI inputs)