Pradeep Nirankarnath Sharma | |
|---|---|
| Indian Administrative Service | |
| In office 1981 –2009 (Suspended) | |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Multiple roles as Collector (DM) & Municipal Commissioner |
Pradeep Nirankarnath Sharma is a former IAS officer of Gujarat. In 2013, he filed a petition in supreme court alleging that Narendra Modi had spied on an architect using state machinery and had called for a CBI probe into it. [1]
He is facing at least five cases of corruption and is accused of illegal land allocation in Kutch and Bhuj. [2]
He is brother of Kuldeep Sharma, a former IPS officer (ex-DIG, Gujarat) who had accused Amit Shah, then Home Minister of state of accepting a bribe of 2.5 crore to bail out a 1600 crore fraudster involving a bank of which Shah was the director. [3]
Sharma held various administrative positions during his near thirty-year career including that of District magistrate, Bhuj, Kutch and Rajkot and as municipal commissioner of Jamnagar and Bhavnagar. [4] A 2011 article by BBC (‘Gujarat's astonishing rise from rubble of 2001 quake’) credits Sharma of being instrumental in redeveloping the Bhuj region after the devastating 2001 earthquake. [5] He was instrumental in faster rebuilding of streets and several public gardens. [6]
In 2013, Sharma had alleged that Narendra Modi, the current Prime Minister of India tailed and snooped upon an architect using state machinery in 2009. [7] He supported his allegations with audio tapes leaked by Cobrapost and Gulail.com. [8] The tapes which are conversations between a police officer and Amit Shah, the present home minister and close aide of Modi show that every movement of the woman was tracked on the behest of some 'saheb' (master). [9] [10] The allegations were refuted and instead Sharma was accused of having doubtful personality traits. [11]
In April 2013, suspended IPS officer G.L. Singhl told Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that he was directed multiple times by Amit Shah to tail Pradeep Sharma. [12] He provided 267 clips of such conversations. These show that over-reaching surveillance was kept by Amit Shah the then home minister of Gujarat on architect, her family and also Sharma. [13]
The accusations snowballed into a major controversy and embarrassment for the BJP, the current ruling party who had nominated Modi as prime ministerial candidate for 2014 Indian general elections. [14] The Gujarat State agencies submitted in court & the BJP leaders accepted in public that snooping did happen which they said was done on behest of girl's father and with her knowledge. [15] S.K. Saikia, the then police commissioner of Ahemdabad said in an interview that if such surveillance was legal, he should have had some paperwork for it. [16]
Pradeep sharma was first arrested on corruption charges by Gujarat police when he was Municipal commissioner, Bhavnagar but he later got bail. [17] He was suspended in 2010 on corruption charges.
In August 2014, he filed a petition in Supreme Court for a CBI probe into cases against him but his application was rejected. He has been since slapped with multiple cases of corruption which his family allege are because of his allegations. [18]
He was arrested in October 2014 in a graft case by Anti-Corruption Bureau. [19]
A case of money laundering was filed against him by Enforcement Directorate for and misusing his powers to allocate land to one M/S. Wellspun Company Ltd and to M/s Saw Pipes Ltd causing a loss of ₹1,20,30,824/- to the government. He was convicted of the crime on 08.01.2018 by an order passed by the Special Judge (PMLA), Ahmedabad, in PMLA Case No. 02 of 2016. [20]
He was sentenced to two five-year imprisonments, one in January (by Ahemdabad sessions court) and other in April (by Bhuj district court). [21]