Coal scam case: Former Union Minister Dilip Ray sentenced to 3 years in jail
Oct 26, 2020
New Delhi [India], October 26 : A special CBI court has sentenced former Union Minister Dilip Ray to 3 years imprisonment in a coal scam case pertaining to the alleged irregularities in the allocation of a Jharkhand coal block in 1999.
The Court also sentenced 3 years imprisonment to two other individuals who were also convicted recently in the matter.
Special Judge Bharat Prashar, while pronouncing sentence also imposed fine of the sum of Rs 10 lakhs each against all convicted individuals.
Advocate Manu Sharma, representing Dilip Ray said we are moving bail for him and also will go in appeal against his conviction.
The same court has also fined Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL) with Rs 60 lakhs and Castron Mining Ltd (CML) with Rs 10 lakh. Both firms were also held convicted by the court.
The special court had recently convicted Dilip Ray, two then senior officials of the Ministry of Coal (MoC) -- Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL), its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML) in the case for charges of criminal conspiracy and other offences.
The CBI earlier urged the court to award life imprisonment to Dilip Ray, who was a former Minister of State for the Ministry of Coal during the then NDA government.
The Court earlier said since it has now been concluded beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts that all the five accused persons Castron Technologies Ltd., Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla, Dilip Ray, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam conspired together so as to procure allocation of a captive coal block i.e. Brahmadiha coal block in favour of M/s CTL and finally achieved the said object of the criminal conspiracy by undertaking various acts of cheating MOC, Government of India by M/s CTL and A-2 M.K. Agarwalla and by various acts constituting the offence of criminal misconduct as defined under P.C. Act, 1988 by Dilip Ray, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam and also the offence of criminal breach of trust by public servant by Dilip Ray, so the court accordingly hold them guilty of the offences uls 120-B IPC, 120-B/409/420 IPC and Section 13 (1) (c) and 13 (1) (d) P.C. Act, 1988 and convict them thereunder beside also convicting them for the substantive offences as already discussed in the earlier part of the judgment 469.
The three accused persons i.e. M/s CTL, Mahesh Kumar Agarwalla and M/s CML are also held guilty for the offence under section 379/34 IPC and court accordingly convict them.
The CBI, in its chargesheet, had booked these accused under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The case pertains to the allocation of the Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih of Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.
