An Ahmedabad court has started day-to-day trial against former IAS officer Pradeep Sharma and other co-accused after the court framed charges against the accused last week.
On Wednesday, the court continued examination of the first prosecution witness — retired police official VM Gohil — who was the investigating officer in the case.
Among the charges faced by Sharma include forgery and criminal conspiracy.
The former IAS officer has been accused of allotting land to Welspun Group by granting non-agricultural (NA) land permission at a discounted rate when he was the Kutch Collector in 2004.
It has been alleged that Welspun returned the favour by appointing Sharma’s wife, Shyamal Sharma, a partner in Value Packaging — a firm that has long-term contracts for supplying packaging material to Welspun. Sharma is facing proceedings by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for forgery as well where the charges were framed against him nearly a month ago.
Earlier in April, the court had permitted two of Sharma’s co-accused — Sunil Milak and Asim Chakravarti — to turn approver in the case and had granted pardon.