The Delhi court, in a case related to irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh has recently convicted former Coal Secretary HC Gupta along with former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Vijay Darda and others.
In an order given on last Thursday, Special CBI judge Sanjay Bansal has also convicted IAS officers KS Kropha and KC Samria, Darda’s son Devender Darda, a company named JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd and its Director, Manoj Kumar Jayswal.
The Court has said that all the accused are guilty of offences under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Court order said that further accused M/s JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt. Ltd. (A-1), Manoj Kumar Jayaswal (A-2), Vijay Darda (A-3) and Devender Darda (A4) are also held guilty and convicted for the substantive offence u/s 420 IPC.
Further accused HC Gupta (A-5), KS Kropha (A-6) and KC Samria (A-7) are also held guilty and convicted for the substantive offence punishable u/s 13(1)(d)(iii) r/w S. 13(2) of the PC Act. However, accused HC Gupta (A-5) is acquitted for the offence punishable u/s 409 IPC and u/s 13(1)(c) PC Act,
This is imporant to note that this is the 13th conviction in the scam.
The case relates to allocation of coal blocks which were advertised in 2006. It was alleged that JLD had concealed various facts in its application form in order to obtain wrongful gain in allocation of the coal block.
As per the information, the coal block was allocated to JLD as a result of active collaboration between the office bearers of the company and the officials of the Ministry of Coal (MoC) Gupta, Kropha and Samria.
During the scam perod, Gupta was then Coal Secretary and Chairman of the Screening Committee, Kropha was posted as Joint Secretary in the MoC and was the Member Convener of the Screening Committee.
Samria was also posted in the MoC and the allegation went that all the applications were received in his office and his office supervised the entire process of processing the applications right through the entire process of allocation of coal blocks.
A closure report was filed by CBI in the case on April 15, 2014 stating that there was no material to show commission of any criminal conspiracy of cheating. However, the closure report was rejected by the predecessor judge in November 2014.
The judge said that private parties had committed an offence of cheating and there was active connivance with the officials of the MoC.
The Court has now held that the accused company did make misrepresentations and dishonestly induced the Government of India.
The Court underlined on the role of the public servants, the Court said that they must be liable for their actions and even though the guidelines issued by the MoC to govern the allocation of captive coal blocks may not be termed as law under Article 13 of the Constitution, they were binding upon the officers.
Tye Court added that allocation of coal block to an ineligible company is against public interest and the actions of the three officers conclusively show that their efforts were to somehow recommend allocation of the coal block in favour of JLD.
The case will be listed on July 18 to decide on the sentence of the convicts.
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