New Delhi: Former Union Minister PK Thungon has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years of imprisonment in a 17-year-old corruption case in an irrigation project in Nagaland on Monday. A special Central Bureau of Investigation court also fined 68-year-old Thungon Rs 10,000.
Thungon, also a former Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, and two others were last Tuesday found guilty of siphoning of Rs 2 crore the central government released for the project in 1998.
Two others involved in the case, Tali AO and C Sangit, have been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail while fourth suspect, Mahesh Maheshwari, has been awarded a two-and-a-half year’s jail term for complicity.
Tali AO has been fined Rs 6,000 while Sangit and Maheshwari have to pay Rs 4,000 each.
The CBI accused, Thungon , then Minister of State Ministry, Urban Affairs and Employment and the others, former officials of Nagaland’s irrigation and flood control department, of misappropriating money from the funds meant for an irrigation project- Rs 2 crore for renovation that the central government had released to the state by placing a bogus order for sausage wire for a project in 1993–94.
The minister and three others were found guilty of offences under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) read with 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
