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Tihar Jail braces for Narasimha Rao: AFP

The 79-year-old Rao and former home minister Buta Singh were convicted in the million-dollar bribery scandal by a special court on September 29.

Rao's lawyer R K Anand said his high-profile client, who headed a minority government as prime minister from 1991-1996, was prepared to go to jail.

"If the sentence is for less than three years, Rao is entitled to interim bail. We will also appeal for a review (of the case) in the trial court itself. And if it (sentence) is for more, then he goes to jail and we will approach the Delhi High Court for appeal against the trial court's order," Anand told reporters in the run-up to the sentencing.

Officials from New Delhi's Tihar Jail Tuesday said preparations were being made to receive Rao as an inmate in the notorious prison.

"He will be kept in jail No 1 because of his security status... All preparations are ready," a highly-placed Tihar source told AFP.

"Once in jail, his security will be our responsibility and not that of the Special Protection Group," the source said.

Rao enjoys a round-the-lock security blanket from the elite SPG national commando force, which also guards Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Tihar, which was built to hold 3,000 inmates, is overcrowded with around 9,000 convicts and people facing trial. It also houses scores of Kashmiri Muslim guerrillas and Sikh militants in its fortified cells.

Complaints of rights abuses and unexplained deaths have dogged the facility for years.

Rao is the first Indian prime minister to be convicted.

The case relates to charges that Rao paid one million dollars in bribes to members of the regional Jharkhand Mukti Morcha to back his Congress party government during a crucial parliamentary vote of no-confidence on July 28, 1993.

The verdict came nearly four years after Rao was formally charged in the JMM bribery case on October 30, 1996.

The JMM bribery case: The full coverage

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