KARACHI, Feb 26: An anti-corruption court on Saturday sentenced a former employee of the revenue department to a total of six years in prison in a graft case.

The court found Ghulam Hussain Kalwar, a tapedar of the revenue department, guilty of taking bribes from a man in 2004 for the allotment of government land.

Judge Rashida Asad of the special provincial anti-corruption court, Karachi, pronounced her verdict after recording evidence and hearing arguments from both sides.

The court handed down three-year imprisonment each to the convict under relevant sections of the Pakistan Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.

The judge also imposed a fine Rs100,000 in each section and in case of default, the convict would have to undergo an additional six-month imprisonment. However, the court ruled that both the sentences would run concurrently.

The verdict said that in the light of evidence available on record, the prosecution had been able to prove the charge against the accused beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The record showed that a cheque for Rs1 million was deposited in the account of the accused who also failed to justify the transactions of millions of rupees in his account, which was disproportionate to his known source of income, it added.

Earlier, in his final argument, defence lawyer Raza Hashmi contended that the prosecution had failed to place any incriminating material against the accused.

He argued that it was not established that the accused took bribes while transactions of millions of rupees in his account had no ground.

The public prosecutor, Arif Sitai, said that the prosecution had examined three witnesses who had testified against the accused in the case.

He maintained that the documentary evidence had also proved that the accused took a bribe, adding that the transactions of millions of rupees were made in his account between 1998 and 2005, which were disproportionate to his known source of income.

According to the prosecution, in 2004 the accused was posted in Korangi Town as a tapedar and he got a bribe from Aslam Pervez in the form of a cheque amounting to Rs1 million for the allotment of the government land.

A case (FIR 61/2006) was registered against the accused under Section 161 (public servant taking gratification other then legal remuneration in respect of an official act) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) the Prevention of Corruption Act at the anti-Corruption Establishment police station.

The accused was on bail and following the pronouncement of the verdict he was taken into custody and sent to prison along with the conviction warrant to serve out the awarded sentence.

Meanwhile, the same court on Saturday dismissed the bail applications of a former reader of an anti-terrorism court in three cases.

Mohammad Junaid is facing a charge of withdrawing the amount of surety from the city courts post office on fake documents.