Tainted ex-minister Sukhram shifted to hospital again

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Former Union Minister Sukhram, who surrendered before a local court on Saturday which sent him to jail to serve his three-year sentence in 1993 telecom scam case, has again been shifted to ICU of a city hospital.

According to the Deputy Inspector General of Tihar Prisons R. N. Sharma, the condition of the 86-year-old ailing former minister had 'deteriorated' and on advise of the Tihar jail hospital doctors, he was admitted to the ICU of Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital on Saturday afternoon.

"He has multiple ailments and the prisons hospital is not equipped to treat his present condition. So after he was brought to the jail yesterday at around 1.30 pm, we had to shift him to the hospital on the advise of our own doctors," he said.

The Supreme Court is likely to hear his bail plea on Monday. The former minister who was convicted in the 1993 telecom scam case was asked by the Delhi High Court to surrender before a trial court to undergo three years jail term.

The veteran politician moved the Supreme Court which refused to hear his appeal and said that his plea would be entertained only after he surrenders.

When directed by the apex court to surrender before the trial court, his counsel had expressed his inability to do so on medical grounds stating that Sukhram was in coma.

He was admitted to the Metro Heart Institute on December 31, 2011 after he complained of severe chest pain.

But doctors at the Institute declared on January 6 that he was not in a state of coma and his condition is stable. The former minister then surrendered before the trial court which sent him to Tihar jail on Saturday afternoon.

Sharma said, "After he was brought to jail, doctors suggested that his condition was not at all right and needed immediate medical attention."