A court in Rajasthan’s Behror town has sentenced Congress MLA from Chaksu, Ved Prakash Solanki to one year in jail and imposed a fine of ₹55 lakh on him in a 2015 cheque bounce case. Mr. Solanki, who is contesting from the same seat in the 2023 Assembly election, was found guilty of giving a cheque for ₹35 lakh to an individual, for which the payment was declined by the bank eight years ago.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nikhil Singh handed down the sentence and the fine to Mr. Solanki on Tuesday, while giving him one month’s time to file an appeal against the judgment. The court ordered the legislator to pay ₹54 lakh from the total penalty to the complainant Mohar Singh Yadav.
Mr. Yadav, a retired physical training instructor in the State government’s Education Department, gave ₹35 lakh in cash to Mr. Solanki for purchasing a plot of land in Bansur in June 2015. When Mr. Solanki did not get the plot registered in Mr. Yadav’s name for several days, the latter demanded his money back.
Mr. Solanki gave a cheque for the amount to Mr. Yadav, but it bounced upon being deposited in the bank. Mr. Yadav then filed a case against the Congress leader in the court under the Negotiable Instruments Act in October 2015. Mr. Solanki lodged a counter-complaint that Mr. Yadav had obtained the cheque from him in a fraudulent manner, but later signed an agreement with him.
As Mr. Solanki did not return the money to Mr. Yadav in terms of the agreement signed in 2019, the court took a serious view of the matter and pronounced the sentence against him.
Mr. Solanki, elected an MLA from Jaipur district’s Chaksu seat in 2018, is considered a loyalist of former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, as he was among the 18 legislators who had sided with Mr. Pilot during the political crisis that gripped the State in 2020.
The incumbent MLA has been fielded as a Congress candidate again from Chaksu in the 2023 Assembly election, for which polling was held on November 25. The election results will be declared on December 3.
