NEW DELHI, March 15: The Delhi High Court on Friday overturned a three-year prison sentence handed down to former Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao for his alleged role in a 1993 bribery scandal, Rao’s lawyer said.

The judgment also overturned a similar sentence on former home minister and Rao’s colleague at the time, Buta Singh.

Rao was the first former Indian prime minister to ever be convicted on criminal charges.

“The court found the only witness in the case to be unreliable as he was found to be changing his statements,” Rao’s lawyer R.K. Anand told reporters outside the High Court.

“There was only one witness in the case and he was party to the crime. Therefore the court today ruled that he is an unreliable witness and there is no corroborative evidence to support his confessional statement and Rao’s complicity,” Anand said.

“Therefore the conviction was set aside and Rao was acquitted.”

Both Rao and Singh had been convicted by a special corruption court in September 2000, which found them guilty of paying massive bribes to MPs from a regional party to back Rao’s Congress party government during a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in July 1993.

Both men have been free on bail since the original conviction.

Rao held office as India’s prime minister for five years between 1991 and 1996.—AFP