Thiruvananthapuram: The Vigilance Court, Kerala, has sentenced eight officials, including the secretary and president of the Integrated Silk Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, to 21 years of rigorous imprisonment each in connection with a major fund embezzlement case, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) said on Saturday.

According to the VACB, the Thiruvananthapuram Taluk Integrated Silk Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, based in Balaramapuram, had obtained a ₹2 crore loan from the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) between October 2009 and March 2010 for the development of the silk handloom sector.

The investigation found that the accused fabricated documents and siphoned off ₹1,15,45,612 from the sanctioned amount, the VACB statement said.

Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Court Judge Manoj A on Friday found the society’s secretary, Majitha, president Surendran, board members Vijayakumari, Suresh, Shivarajan, Maniyan Nadar, Bijith Kumar, and chief promoter Mohanan guilty.

Each of them was sentenced to a total of 21 years of rigorous imprisonment under various sections and collectively fined ₹1,17,85,612, in addition to ₹14,73,201.50 each, the VACB said. The court ruled that the sentences would run concurrently.

The probe revealed that the accused had manipulated the membership register to inflate the number of members and submitted a falsified project report to obtain the loan. They later created fake purchase records to misappropriate the funds, the VACB added.

One of the accused, board member Gopala Panicker, passed away during the investigation. Former Public Prosecutor and current legal advisor Ranjith Kumar LR, along with Public Prosecutor Veena Satheesan, represented the Vigilance department during the trial

PTI inputs