A special court for coal block corruption cases on Monday sentenced former Coal Secretary H.C. Gupta and two other bureaucrats to two years in jail for causing loss to the country by allocating a coal block to a private company in an illegal manner.
The other bureaucrats are then Joint Secretary in the Coal Ministry K.S. Kropha and then Director, Coal Allocation-I Section of the Ministry, K.C. Samaria.
The three public servants were also fined ₹1 lakh each.
For Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia, managing director of the beneficiary company, Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Limited (KSSPL), special judge Bharat Parashar awarded three years’ imprisonment and fined ₹30 lakh. The company also has to cough up ₹1 crore as fine, the judge said.
Granted bail
However, the court granted bail to all the accused to enable them to file appeals in the Delhi High Court against the conviction and sentence orders as per Section 389 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
The provision says that in cases where accused are awarded the sentence of three years or less can be granted bail by the trial court for filing appeal in a high court.
The case pertains to irregularities in the allocation of Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to KSSPL.
Criminal conspiracy
The court had last week convicted them of criminal conspiracy, cheating under the Indian Penal Code and for corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“In so far as loss which occurred to the nation as a whole it will be suffice to state that had coal been extracted if the coal block was allocated to a genuine and deserving company in an objective manner then it would have certainly added to the infrastructural development of the country. This in itself has resulted in wrongful loss to the country in its economic development and the said loss is difficult to be accounted for in terms of money. Thus it is... a fallacious argument that no wrongful loss or gain has been caused on account of allocation of said coal block to KSSPL,” Mr. Parashar said in the conviction order.
The CBI had filed an FIR in 2012 against the accused 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.
Rejects report
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.
