Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti disqualified from MP assembly after conviction in cheating case

Madhya Pradesh Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti has been disqualified from the state legislative assembly following his conviction in a case involving the tampering of bank records to secure illegal interest payments, officials said on Friday.

The disqualification, however, has triggered a political row, with the opposition party terming the "midnight" move a "blatant violation of the democratic process".

Following deliberations on the issue on Thursday night, the Vidhan Sabha authorities issued a notification annulling Bharti's membership from the Datia assembly seat, after his conviction in a case involving the tampering of bank records to secure illegal interest payments, officials said.

The Congress leader had defeated former MP home minister Narottam Mishra of the ruling BJP from the seat in the 2023 assembly polls.

Reacting to the development, Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari claimed that the Delhi court had given Bharti 60 days to appeal against his conviction. However, despite this, Assembly Speaker Narendra Singh Tomar opened the Assembly Secretariat at midnight and terminated his membership.

He described this action as the one taken under pressure from the government and "a blatant violation of democratic process".

The assembly's principal secretary, Arvind Sharma, issued a notification, citing a Delhi court order sentencing Bharti to three years' imprisonment and declaring the Datia seat vacant, on the night of April 2 and released to the media on Friday morning.

A Delhi court on Thursday sentenced Bharti and a former bank employee to three years' imprisonment in a cheating case involving the forging of bank records to obtain illegal interest payments between 1998 and 2011.

Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on Bharti and former cashier Raghuvir Sharan Prajapati.

The duo was convicted on Wednesday for the offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery of a valuable security, forgery for cheating and using a forged document as genuine.

The case, which originated in MP’s Datia, was transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court in October last year, in light of the claim that efforts were made to intimidate defence witnesses.

The apex court, which had stayed further proceedings in the case pending before a court in Gwalior, had said it was the state’s duty to ensure a fair trial was conducted.

In its 95-page judgment, the Delhi court rejected the defence plea that the accused, as “public servants”, could not be prosecuted for discharge of official functions without government sanction, saying cheating and forgery are “dereliction of duty rather than the performance of a duty”.

It said that Bharti and Prajapati, along with the MLA's mother Savitri Devi and possibly other unknown persons, conspired to cheat the complainant bank — Zila Sahkari Krishi Aur Grahmin Vikas Bank — by continuing to draw interest at a much higher rate beyond 2011, even though their fixed deposit (FD) had an initial tenure of three years.

Proceedings against Savitri Devi were abated after she died in 2019.

The court also observed, “The argument by Bharti that he is politically targeted or that the prosecution is politically motivated is all speculation. He has failed to prove any such political motives or false implications.”

Instead, it is a case involving the forgery of bank documents and the cheating of a bank between 1998 and 2011, long before the alleged political rivalry claimed by Bharti, the court said.

According to the prosecution, Savitri Devi had deposited Rs 10 lakh in the bank at Datia on August 24, 1998, and the deposit was made in the name of a family-run trust for an FD of three years at an interest rate of 13.5 per cent per annum.

Using correction fluid and overwriting, the three-year term was extended by 10 and 15 years, allowing the trust to continue withdrawing annual interest payments till 2011, long after market interest rates had plummeted, claimed the prosecution.

It was alleged that the trust, where Bharti was a trustee, illegally got around Rs 18.5 lakh in interest.

In its order, the court said that Bharti, who served as the chairman of the bank when the fraud was committed, used his position to pressure employees and facilitate the unauthorised payments to his family trust.

It also noted that the initials of the then bank cashier, Prajapati, were found next to the tampered sections of the records where correction fluid had been applied.

Patwari, in a press conference, noted that while a paid news case is pending against Narottam Mishra, no action has been taken, exposing the BJP-led government's double standards.

He also informed that Congress senior lawyers, including Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha, have taken up Bharti's case and have already filed an appeal in the Delhi High Court against the judgment.