Noida land scandal: Ex-official gets four-year jail (Second Lead)

GHAZIABAD - A former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh was Tuesday held guilty of wrongfully allotting a plot during her tenure as Noida authority chief and sentenced to four-year imprisonment by a court here. She was immediately taken into custody.

Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Judge A.K. Singh found Neera Yadav, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer, guilty of violating the rules in allotting the industrial plot in Noida to Flex Industries Limited in 1994-95.

Flex Industries chairman Ashok Chaturvedi was also held guilty and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

Yadav was acquitted in another case related to allegedly illegal allotment of land to Kailash Hospital, also in Noida.

Sharing details of the judgment, CBI’s Senior Public Prosecutor S. Islam said two corruption cases were registered in 1998 against Yadav and the beneficiaries of out-of-turn allotment of plots.

The cases were registered after the Supreme Court directed the CBI to file criminal cases on a plea filed by the Noida Entrepreneurs Association (NEA).

The CBI filed charges in the two cases in 2002.

After the court hearing Tuesday, Yadav was sent to jail. “The former chief secretary has been taken into custody and sent to jail,” said circle officer R.K. Singh.