A Sessions Court on Monday sentenced former IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to five years in prison and imposed a fine of ₹75,000 in connection with a 2004 corruption case during his tenure as the collector of Gujarat’s Kutch district. 

Principal District and Sessions Judge KM Sojitra convicted Sharma in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which alleged irregularities in the allotment of land to the Welspun Group. The transaction reportedly caused a loss of ₹1.2 crore to the government exchequer. 

Sharma was found guilty under Section 13(2) (criminal misconduct by a public servant) and Section 11 (obtaining undue advantage without consideration) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. 

Under Section 13(2), he was sentenced to five years in jail and fined ₹50,000. For the charge under Section 11, he received a three-year sentence and a₹25,000 fine. Both sentences will run concurrently, according to public prosecutor Kalpesh Goswami. 

Mr. Sharma is currently incarcerated in a Bhuj jail in connection with another corruption case. 

The court conducted a joint trial for three corruption cases linked to the allotment of land to the Welspun Group, public prosecutor Kalpesh Goswami stated. 

According to case details, Mr. Sharma allotted land to the company at just 25% of the prevailing market rate, causing significant financial loss to the government exchequer. In return, Welspun Group allegedly made Mr. Sharma's wife a 30% partner in Value Packaging, one of its subsidiaries, and extended her a financial benefit of ₹29.5 lakh. 

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested Mr. Sharma on September 30, 2014, accusing him of accepting a ₹29 lakh bribe from the private company during his tenure as Kutch collector in 2004. 

A controversial figure, Mr. Sharma is embroiled in several corruption cases and had a strained relationship with the Gujarat government when it was led by Narendra Modi. He had sought a CBI investigation into allegations of surveillance on a woman architect after two news portals released CDs containing purported telephonic conversations. 

These recordings, allegedly from August to September 2009, featured conversations between Union Home Minister Amit Shah—then Gujarat's Minister of State for Home—and senior state police officials. The conversations reportedly referenced a "saheb," which the portals claimed was the then-Gujarat Chief Minister. Both Shah and the state government have denied these allegations.