A Supreme Court lawyer, who forged bills and later tried to bribe CBI officials, was today sentenced to five years in jail by a special CBI court here.

Lawyer Halida Khatun was sentenced to five years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 by CBI special judge S R Sen for trying to bribe a CBI official with Rs 1 lakh in 2002 in lieu of "documentary evidences" against her, senior special counsel for CBI Tsering Yangi B said.

In 1996, then director of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had filed a case against Khatun for "forging bills" and giving "inflationary bills" with regard to the lawyer's fees. The forged bills submitted to ICAR amounted to Rs 8.5 lakh.

CBI had registered cases under sections 420, 468 and 471 of the IPC against her.

"In 2002, she tried to bribe a CBI official with Rs 1 lakh in exchange of the documentary evidences against her, but the central investigating agency laid a trap and caught her red-handed on April 23 that year," the CBI counsel said.

For the bribery case, Khatun was booked under 201 of the IPC and Section 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).

For the other offences against her, Khatun was awarded jail terms of 21 months, 45 months, six months and a fine of Rs 5,000. "These will run concurrently with the other punishment," the counsel said.