Retd Army officer, 2 others jailed for defrauding MoD

"It can be inferred beyond reasonable doubt that all the three accused were acting in connivance to attain their illegal object of defrauding the Ministry of Defence," Special Judge V K Maheshwari said.

Lt Col (Retd) P S Rao was sentenced to two years imprisonment, while Upper Division Clerk Deepak Dutt Mudgal and his brother Rahul Dutt Mudgal were awarded four years in jail.

In 1994, Rao was posted as Deputy Director Ordinance Service (DDOS) in Inventory and Budget Control (I&BC) section at the Army headquarters here while Deepak was working under him.

The court held them guilty of criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating, impersonation and criminal misconduct by public servant.

The court showed leniency towards Rao as he is suffering from cancer. It also slapped a fine of Rs one lakh on Rao and Rs two lakh each on Rahul and Deepak.

The CBI said the I&BC section dealt with allocation of revenue budget to various units and is not authorised to procure any store item on its own or issue sanction for its purchase.

However, Rao, in conspiracy with Deepak and his brother, opened three bogus and non-existing firms and Rahul was shown as their proprietor.

They then prepared 32 bogus bills, false sanction orders, notice inviting tenders, quotations and other related documents and got them passed fraudulently.

The agency said Rao had prepared bogus sanction orders and forged signatures of the sanctioning authority and items like paper shredding machines, laminating machines, intercom sets, dicta phones, storage cabinet and over head projectors were falsely shown as purchased.

Besides the trio, there were five other accused in the case, who were discharged by the court in 2005.