Mumbai: A special court on May 13 awarded two years' rigorous imprisonment (RI) to three bankers, who connived with big bull Harshad Mehta to cheat a nationalised bank of Rs 20 lakh by over charging rate of interest in call money transactions in 1991.

M S Srinivasan, funds manager of State Bank of Saurashtra, Vinayak Deosthali, Assistant Manager of United Commercial Bank and Ashok Ugrankar, Manager of United Commercial Bank were sent to jail for two years for offence under Section 13 (2) read with Section 13 (1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

The accused were also sentenced to one year RI for offences under Section 120 (b) IPC (conspiracy) read with Section 409 IPC (criminal breach of trust) and Section 477A (fraudulent destruction of valuable security).

Both the sentences would run concurrently. They were also fined Rs 50,000 each.

The accused were, however, released on bail for four weeks to file an appeal against the order of conviction. The designated judge A R Joshi ordered them to furnish Rs 50000 bail amount. The accused were convicted on May 12 but the quantum of punishment was decided today by the court after hearing the accused and CBI.

The judge opined that the charge of conspiracy against the accused was proved. He held the trio guilty of draining out public funds by crediting Rs 20 lakhs in the account of Harshad Mehta with State Bank of Saurashtra.

As regards Mehta, the case was abetted since he passed away on December 31, 2001.

PTI