Ahmedabad / New Delhi | December 7, 2025- A special court in Ahmedabad has sentenced retired IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to five years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹50,000 in a high-profile money laundering case linked to his tenure as Kutch District Collector (2003–2006).
The case stems from allegations that Sharma abused his official position to grant government land at concessional rates to Welspun India Limited, one of Gujarat’s leading industrial groups, in exchange for illegal monetary benefits.
ED: Kickbacks routed through wife’s bank account
According to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Sharma received unlawful gratification from Welspun India and its group companies for approving land allocations that violated existing norms.
Investigators found that ₹29.5 lakh was transferred into the bank account of Sharma’s wife — a US citizen — in what ED described as a “direct kickback” for granting undue favour to the company.
ED officials argued that Sharma and his wife subsequently laundered the proceeds of crime, using the funds to repay a home loan and purchase agricultural land. Between 2004 and 2007, Sharma’s wife was made a 30% partner in a firm named Value Packaging Pvt. Ltd., which investigators said was created to channel and disguise illicit funds.
Court orders confiscation of attached properties
Delivering the verdict, Special PMLA Judge K.M. Sojitra found Sharma guilty under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The court ordered that the properties attached by the ED during the probe will remain permanently confiscated by the central government.
In his judgment, the judge observed that “public servants are custodians of public trust, and any abuse of authority for personal enrichment amounts to a serious breach of administrative integrity.”
Trail of corruption cases since 2010
This is not Sharma’s first brush with the law. Over the past decade and a half, multiple agencies — including the CID, ACB, and ED — have booked him in corruption-related cases.
In March 2010, the CID (Rajkot) registered an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act, alleging that Sharma caused a loss of ₹1.20 crore to the state exchequer. A separate case under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was filed later that year.
In 2012, the ED’s Ahmedabad Zonal Office initiated criminal proceedings under the PMLA based on these FIRs.
Subsequently, in September 2014, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) also charged him with abusing his official position to reclassify agricultural land as non-agricultural for the benefit of Welspun Group companies, despite knowing that his wife was a partner in a related firm.
Earlier conviction in land allocation irregularities
In April 2025, Sharma was already convicted in another corruption case.
A Bhuj court had sentenced him to five years of rigorous imprisonment and fined him ₹10,000 in a 2011 case involving irregularities in the allotment of government land to Saw Pipes Pvt. Ltd.
He was arrested by the ED in July 2016 and later released on bail in March 2018.
Currently, Sharma is serving his sentence in jail, making this his second conviction within a year.
From influential bureaucrat to symbol of graft
Once considered an influential officer in Gujarat’s administrative circles, Pradeep Sharma was known for his role in Kutch’s post-earthquake reconstruction projects. However, his career soon became mired in allegations of corruption and favoritism towards select industrial houses.
Legal experts view the judgment as a strong signal of accountability, reinforcing that even senior bureaucrats are not immune to prosecution under anti-corruption laws.
The ED, sources said, is now expanding its probe into possible corporate beneficiaries linked to Sharma’s decisions during his tenure, while the Gujarat government has ordered an internal review of all land allotments made between 2003 and 2006 under his supervision.
