Ex-coal secretary Gupta convicted for block allocation fraud

Special ourt will pronounce the order on quantum of sentence on May 22.

A view of a coal mine.

A Delhi court on Friday convicted former Coal Secretary H.C. Gupta and five others, including the beneficiary company, for irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Madhya Pradesh.

The case pertains to irregularities in the allocation of Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block to Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Limited (KSSPL).

In addition to Mr. Gupta, special CBI judge Bharat Parashar also convicted managing director of KSSPL Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia, then Joint Secretary in the Coal Ministry K.S. Kropha, and then Director, Coal Allocation-I Section, in the Ministry, K.C. Samaria. All the five were held guilty of criminal conspiracy, cheating and indulging in corrupt practices.

Sentencing next week

Mr. Parashar fixed May 22 as the date for hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to the convicted persons.

The CBI had filed an FIR in 2012 against the accused persons for misrepresentation of facts and presentation of inflated net worth of the company to acquire the coal block but on March 27, 2014, filed a closure report in the case.

However, the court rejected the closure report on October 13, 2014, and summoned Mr. Gupta and others as accused.

“The investigating officer first “decided the end result and then carried out investigation and prepared the final report,” the Special Judge had observed while rejecting the CBI plea.

‘Sketchy probe’

The court had also described the investigation as sketchy.

“No investigation worth the name has been carried out… In fact, the report appears to be more of a statement of plea of defence of the accused persons i.e. of Messrs KSSPL and its directors and that of the officers of the Ministry of Coal rather than the report of any investigation,” Mr. Parashar had further observed.

The court framed charges against them in 2016, observing that then Prime Minister Mamohan Singh was kept in the dark by Mr. Gupta,who had prima facie violated the law on the issue of coal block allocation.

As many as ten more coal cases are pending against Mr. Gupta and the proceedings are going on individually. The Supreme Court had last year dismissed his plea seeking joint trial in all these cases.

(With inputs from PTI)