Former Bihar minister Illiyas Hussain and four other accused were awarded five years imprisonment while a contractor was sentenced to seven years in jail in connection with a coal tar scam case by a special CBI court on Friday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court of Anil Kumar Mishra had reserved the judgement on Tuesday after hearing was completed in the 22-year-old case.
“Former Bihar Minister Illiyas Hussain was awarded five years imprisonment and contractor D.N. Singh was awarded seven years imprisonment. The court also slapped a fine of ₹20 lakh on both of them,” lawyer Arvind Singh told reporters.
Between 1994 and 1996, 3,266 metric tonne of coal tar was purchased for road construction work and in 1997 the ₹1.57 crore scam surfaced.
At the directive of the Patna High Court, the case was handed over to the CBI, which lodged an FIR in 1997.