5 ex-top railway officials get 2 yrs’ jail term in graft case

A former Railway Board member and ex-Southern Railway General Manager N Kirthivasan and three other former senior officials were on Monday sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment by a CBI special court here in a corruption case related to projects undertaken in 1995.

The then Railway Board Member (Engineering) VK Agnihotri, Chief Track Engineer P Rajamoni, Additional General Manager, S Sethuraman, Chief Signals and Telecommunication Engineer S Ramasubramanian were the others who were awarded the sentence by XIII Additional Special Judge for CBI Cases S Jawahar. The Judge also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on the convicts, who were charged with causing a loss of Rs 2.29 crore to the railways in the award of contracts for various projects in 1995, a CBI release here said.

The case investigated by CBI Anti-Corruption wing related to award of contracts worth Rs 58.67 lakh to contractor S Palani for taking up the projects. All contracts awarded to Palani were terminated as he did not purchase the machinery and equipment and later given to other contractors. Due to this, Southern Railway incurred a loss of Rs 2.29 crore, the release said.

During the course of trial, Palani expired and the charges against him were abated while the other former Railway officials were convicted.