Bhubaneswar, Oct 17 (IANS): A court in Odisha has sentenced a former state legislator to two years' rigorous imprisonment in connection with a financial offence he committed about eight years ago, public prosecutor Krushna Chandra Das said Wednesday.

The court of the chief judicial magistrate at Baripada, about 270 km from here, also slapped a Rs. 25,000 fine on 74-year-old Bimal Lochan Das and said that in case he does not pay the amount, he would have to spend another six months in jail.

"Das had sanctioned loans worth Rs. 7 crore to different persons during his tenure as president of the Baripada Urban Co-operative Bank from 2003-2004," public prosecutor Krushna Chandra Das told IANS.

Police registered a criminal case and filed a charge sheet against him after an audit team detected the irregularities during an investigation in 2005, the public prosecutor said.

The audit had found that Das sanctioned the loans violating the bank's rules of business, and Reserve Bank of India guidelines.

Judge Nilakantha Tripathy pronounced the sentence in a crowded court Tuesday.

Das represented Baripada constituency in the state assembly from 2004-2009 as a member of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).