Gandhinagar: Former IAS officer Pradeep Sharma has been sentenced to five years in prison by a special PMLA court in a money-laundering case, adding an additional term to the sentence he is already serving. The court has also ruled that the properties attached by the Enforcement Directorate will continue to remain with the government.

According to the case details, Sharma, in collusion with the promoters of the Welspun Group, made his wife Shyamal Sharma, who resides in the United States, a 30 percent partner in Value Packaging Private Limited, an associate company. Investigations showed that Shyamal Sharma had made no capital investment until 2007, and only in 2008 did she reflect an investment of one lakh rupees. Despite this, she received an estimated 28 lakh rupees as profit share between April 2008 and June 2009, of which about 22 lakh rupees was deposited in her NRO account.

The prosecution stated that Pradeep Sharma used this money to repay a housing loan for his residence in Gandhinagar and to purchase land in the Dehgam area. He also faced allegations of transferring large sums of money from India to the United States through hawala channels.

While announcing the sentence, the PMLA court clarified that the five-year term awarded in this case will not run concurrently with his existing sentence, meaning he will have to serve it separately.

Sharma was previously convicted along with three other officials in a case related to irregular allotment of government land in Samaghogha, Mundra, during his tenure as Collector of Kutch. The court found that government rules were violated when 47,173 square metres of land was allotted to Soappipe US Limited, even though the collector was empowered to allot only up to two hectares as per official guidelines. For this, Sharma had been awarded a five-year prison term and a fine of ten thousand rupees.