Ex-IAS officer Pradeep Sharma sentenced to 5 years for land scam in Gujarat

In a major judgment involving abuse of public office, a Bhuj court on April 19 sentenced former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Pradeep Sharma and three other former government officials to five years of rigorous imprisonment in a 2011 case linked to illegal land allotments in Kutch district.

The case pertains to irregularities during Sharma’s tenure as Kutch District Collector in 2003 –04, when parcels of government land in Mundra taluka were allotted to a private firm — Saw Pipes Pvt. Ltd — at grossly undervalued rates. The court held that Sharma and his co-accused subverted official procedures to approve land deals at just ₹6 per square meter, far below market value.

The judgment was delivered by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate J.V. Buddha, who also imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on each of the four convicts. Alongside Sharma, the court convicted former town planner Natu Desai, then Deputy Mamlatdar of Mundra Narendra Prajapati, and then Resident Additional Collector Ajitsinh Zala. Charges included criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, and misuse of official power under IPC Sections 409, 120B, and 217.

Significantly, the court ruled that Sharma’s fresh sentence will begin only after he completes his current sentence in a separate money laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), in which he was convicted earlier this year by a court in Ahmedabad. His ongoing sentence is scheduled to end in 2030.

“Despite not having the authority, Sharma passed unauthorized land allotment orders and failed to notify the state government,” the court noted. “Only after state intervention did the company pay the government-determined prices.”

The disputed allotments included land parcels measuring 3,845 sq. meters for just ₹23,070, and another of 20,538 sq. meters for ₹1.23 lakh.

Special Public Prosecutor HB Jadeja, speaking to The Indian Express, stressed that the court accepted the prosecution's plea for Sharma’s sentence in the land scam case to run consecutively, not concurrently, with his existing PMLA sentence. “This ensures that the punishment retains its deterrent value,” Jadeja said.

The original FIR was registered in 2011 at the Rajkot CID (Crime) police station following revelations of collusion and procedural violations in the land allotment process.