E-Paper
Delhi court awards 3-year jail term to former Coal Secretary in coal scam case
H C Gupta, former Coal Secretary, was awarded 3-year jail term by Delhi court on Monday in a case of irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Maharashtra
A Delhi court on Monday awarded three-year jail term to former Coal Secretary H C Gupta in a coal scam case related to irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Maharashtra, a lawyer associated with the case said.
Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj also awarded two year imprisonment to former joint-Secretary in the Ministry of Coal (MoC), K S Kropha in the case and imposed a fine of ₹50,000, while Gupta was asked to pay a fine of ₹one lakh.
The court had convicted both for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and corruption in the case related to allocation of Lohara East coal block.
The court, meanwhile, awarded four year jail term to Mukesh Gupta, the director of convicted company, Grace Industries Ltd. (GIL), for criminal conspiracy and cheating and imposed a fine of ₹two lakh on him, while the company was also directed to pay a fine of ₹two lakh separately.
Both were convicted for criminal conspiracy and cheating.
The trial of the case was conducted by senior advocate R S Cheema, Deputy Legal Advisor for the CBI Sanjay Kumar and senior public prosecutor A P Singh.
Also Read | PSI recruitment scam: CBI conducts multiple raids in Jammu
Also Read | U’khand paper leak scam: S Raju admits mafia, political pressure in govt recruitments
H C Gupta was earlier convicted in three other coal scam cases and his appeal against those convictions is pending before the Delhi High Court. He is currently on bail along with other convict persons in the case.
According to the CBI, between 2005 and 2011, the accused persons hatched a criminal conspiracy and cheated MoC, Government of India by dishonestly and fraudulently inducing the MoC to allocate 'Lohara East Coal Block' in favour of GIL on the basis of false information about net worth, capacity, equipments and status of procurement and installation of plant.
The CBI also stated that the company, in its application, claimed its net worth as ₹120 crore whereas its own networth was only ₹3.3 crore, and that the company also falsified its existing capacity as 1,20,000 TPA against 30,000 TPA.
The Supreme Court had on August 25, 2014 cancelled the entire allocations of coal blocks.
This is the 11th conviction in coal scam cases secured by prosecution.
