New Delhi: Former Union minister Sukh Ram
on Thursday did not surrender before a Delhi court to serve his
three-year jail term in a 1993 graft case citing medical
grounds, even as his co-accused Runu Ghosh and P Rama Rao
submitted themselves to the law to serve their sentences.
Sukh Ram, 86, cited medical reasons for not surrendering
as his counsel told special CBI judge Dharmesh Sharma that the
veteran politician has undergone angiography owing to his
cardiac ailments and is hospitalised.
The judge said Sukh Ram's plea that he be taken into
judicial custody at the hospital itself will be heard tomorrow
by concerned Special CBI Judge Sanjiv Jain, who was on leave
today.
After former bureaucrat Runu Ghosh and Hyderabad-based
businessman Rama Rao surrendered before special judge
Dharmesh Sharma, they were taken into custody and sent to jail
to serve their respective two and three year terms.
The apex court had refused to give any relief to them
earlier in the day and had directed them to surrender before
the concerned trial court in accordance with the Delhi High
Court judgement upholding their conviction and asking them to
surrender on January 5.
While sending Ghosh and Rao to jail, the judge said, "Both the accused (Ghosh and Rao) are surrendering and let
they be taken into custody to serve their sentences as per the
order dated December 21, 2011 of the Delhi High Court which
had maintained the order and sentence passed by the special
judge."
The court, however, refused to hear the plea of Sukh Ram
saying "To my mind, judicial propriety demands that this court
cannot pass any substantive order. Let it be put before the
concerned judge for tomorrow at 10 am."
PTI
First Published: Thursday, January 05, 2012, 15:12