Sukhram shifted to hospital again

Former Union minister Sukhram has been again moved to the Intensive Care Unit of a city hospital as doctors said his condition deteriorated soon after he moved to Tihar jail on Saturday to serve a three-year sentence in the 1993 telecom scam case. The Supreme Court is likely to hear his bail plea on Monday.

The condition of 86-year-old Sukhram deteriorated and on the advice of the Tihar jail hospital doctors, he was admitted to the ICU of Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital on Saturday afternoon, Deputy Inspector General of Tihar Prisons, R N Sharma said. "He has multiple ailments and the prisons hospital is not equipped to treat his present condition. So after he was brought to the jail on Saturday at around 1.30 pm, we had to shift him to the hospital on the advice of our own doctors," he said.

Sukhram, 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 stating that Sukhram was in a 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."