New Delhi: Who is Pradeep Sharma? Once at the centre of a political firestorm over his allegations of illegal surveillance under the Modi-Shah administration in Gujarat—former IAS officer has been in custody since 2016 for a PMLA case in which he has now been sentenced to five years in jail at the age of 71.
A special court in Ahmedabad (Rural) found him guilty of laundering illicit proceeds derived from land allotment during his tenure as District Collector, Bhuj (Kutch). Judge Kamal M. Sojitra on 6 December, via a detailed 195-page judgment, also ordered confiscation of assets worth Rs 1.32 crore.
The case stems from an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation based on multiple FIRs filed in Gujarat under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Pradeep Sharma was suspended from the IAS in 2010 for alleged corruption.
Who is Sharma?
A 1984-batch IAS officer, Sharma claimed he was being victimised by the BJP government in Gujarat. He was taken in custody in July 2016 in the PMLA case.
His brother, Kuldeep Sharma, a former IPS officer, had alleged in 2010 that Amit Shah—then Gujarat’s Home Minister—accepted a Rs 2.5 crore bribe to protect a businessman accused in a Rs 1,600 crore fraud case at a bank where Shah served as a director.
In 2013, Sharma accused Narendra Modi of using state machinery in 2009 to surveil an architect, presenting leaked audio tapes from Cobrapost and Gulail.com as evidence. The purported recordings, featuring conversations between a police official and Amit Shah, suggested that the woman’s movements were monitored on the instructions of a “saheb”. The claims were denied, and Sharma was accused of having questionable personal motives.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley accused the Congress of using Pradeep Sharma to make “absurd charges” of snooping against state Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
In April 2014, the Gujarat High Court rejected suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma’s plea seeking direction to lodge an FIR against Modi, as, his affidavit claimed, he was targeted because Narendra Modi suspected him of possessing a CD that could “damage reputations”.
The root crime: Undue favours in land allotment
The core criminal activity, known as the predicate offence, allegedly took place during Sharma’s tenure as District Collector, Bhuj (Kutch), and Chairman of the District Land Pricing Committee (DLPC), from May 2003 to June 2006.
During this time, he was found to have committed predicate offences by colluding with others to allot government land in Varshmedi village in Taluka Anjar to M/s Welspun India Ltd and its group companies.
ED’s probe claimed to establish that he “obtained and derived undue monetary benefits in relation to criminal activities relating to scheduled offences for himself”.
Crucially, it also established that the land was allotted at rates significantly below the government standard, ranging from only “Rs 15 to Rs 18 per square meter, instead of the fixed government rate of Rs 78 per square meter”, thereby causing considerable “financial loss” to the state government.
This illegal allotment generated “proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 1.20 crore”. Evidence from witnesses like Asim Niranjan Chakravarty, a Director of the Welspun Company, revealed that the Collector had advised the company to make “12 separate applications in the year 2004-2005 in the name of different company demanding 5 acre part of land” so that the allotment would fall within the Collector’s jurisdictional limit.
In return for these undue favours, the prosecution argued that Pradeep Sharma availed illegal benefits, including using a mobile SIM card with international call facilities (as his family lived in the USA), with the bill being paid by Welspun.
‘Layering and concealment’
The key mechanism of the money laundering, the court noted, involved channeling the illegal gains through his wife, Shyamal P. Sharma. She was introduced as a “30 percent partner in M/s Value Packaging Private Limited”, a firm supplying cardboard boxes predominantly to the Welspun Group. Significantly, this partnership was created “without any initial capital investment” on the part of Shyamal P. Sharma.
Evidence established that M/s Value Packaging subsequently transferred approximately Rs 22 lakh into Mrs Sharma’s Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) bank account, along with Rs 7.50 lakh as goodwill payment, resulting in total illegal gratification of Rs 28,17,407.
To this, the court noted that “no prudent person would believe that any business entity would introduce any person as a partner even when his presence is not there in day to day administration of the business”, finding this arrangement part of a “very well planned modus to deal with the proceeds of crime”.
Furthermore, the proceeds of crime were “layered and integrated”, using Mrs Sharma’s accounts, including her Bank of America account in the USA.
The funds were later used domestically “to repay a housing loan for his Gandhinagar house and to purchase agricultural land in Dehgam, Gandhinagar”.
Witnesses also detailed how Sharma allegedly used various intermediaries for Hawala transactions to transfer approximately “Rs 1 crore” to his wife’s USA accounts.
Why court rejected defence arguments
The defence had argued for acquittal based on the fact that Pradeep Sharma had been acquitted in two of the three underlying predicate offences (the mobile sim card case and the land allotment case). However, the court unequivocally rejected this argument, citing established law and stating that the offence of money laundering is an “independent offence” and a “continuing offence”.
The judgment emphasised that the “act of money laundering does not conclude with a single instance but extends so long as the proceeds of crime are concealed, used or projected as untainted property”. The court noted that the conviction in the third predicate offence (the Value Packaging case) clearly showed the nexus: The conviction was for “having direct nexus with the act of accused in allotting government land at a lesser price to the Welspun Group of companies and thereby, benefited the said companies and in turn receiving favour”.
Thereby concluding that since foundational facts regarding the proceeds of crime were established, a legal presumption under Section 24 of the PML Act was raised against the accused. The accused failed to rebut this legal presumption or “explain the source of those money which are reflected in the bank account statement of Shyamal Sharma”.
Under Section 24 PMLA, the burden shifted to Sharma to explain the funds.
He “failed to provide rebuttal evidence or a satisfactory explanation regarding the source of the funds reflected in his and his wife’s accounts”, said the court.
The PMLA court found that Sharma concealed, possessed and projected the proceeds of crime as legitimate assets.
The appellant’s arguments regarding the retrospective application of PMLA and threshold monetary limits were found to be legally untenable, given the substantial material indicating the quantum of proceeds of crime and the continuing nature of the offence.
Conviction in the Value Packaging case of 2014 provided the required criminal proceeds nexus, the court ruled.
Sharma pleaded that his sentence be run concurrently with earlier convictions. The court rejected this request, observing that the accused, “an IAS officer holding the post of District Collector and District Magistrate… misused his official position by indulging in corrupt practice and also indulging himself in offence of money laundering”, making him “disentitled… for any discretion by directing sentence to run concurrently”.
It added that offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and PMLA pursue different statutory objectives, and the seriousness and gravity require separate punishment.
SC’s earlier observations upheld
Sharma’s discharge plea had been rejected earlier by the High Court and Supreme Court. The apex court held: “The law recognises that money laundering is not a static event but an ongoing activity, as long as illicit gains are possessed, projected as legitimate, or reintroduced into the economy.”
The Supreme Court also directed that the trial be completed in a time-bound manner.
Its findings stressed that PMLA covers continuing financial misconduct; a prima facie case of misuse of power existed and aggregate illicit gains crossed the Rs 30 lakh threshold.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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