On July 26, a Delhi Court sentenced former Rajya Sabha MP from Congress, Vijay Darda, his son Devender Darda and the director of JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd Manoj Kumar Jayaswal to four years imprisonment. The court further sentenced former Coal Secretary HC Gupta and IAS officers KS Kropha and KC Samria to three years imprisonment.
The Rouse Avenue Court’s Special CBI Judge (Coal Block Cases) Sanjay Bansal was hearing the case concerning irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh. The court has further imposed a Rs 10 lakh fine each on the former Congress MP, his son and Manoj Kumar Jayaswal. Meanwhile, the three bureaucrats – HC Gupta, KS Kropha and KC Samria – are liable to pay a fine of Rs 10,000.
On July 13, the court convicted all six accused offences punishable u/s 120B, 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and u/s 13(1)(d)(iii) Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act). “In view of the above discussion, it is held that the prosecution has proved the charges. All the accused persons i.e. the company M/s JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt. Ltd. (A-1), its three directors Manoj Kumar Jayaswal (A-2), Vijay Darda (A-3) and Devender Darda (A-4) and the three accused public servants H.C. Gupta (A-5), K.S. Kropha (A-6) and K.C. Samria (A-7) are hereby held guilty and convicted for the offence u/s 120-B IPC and 120-B r/w 420 IPC & S. 13(1)(d)(iii) PC Act,” the court said. This is the thirteenth conviction in the coal scam case.
Background
The case pertains to the allocation of the ‘Fatehpur East’ coal block situated in the State of Chhattisgarh in favour of the accused. The coal blocks were advertised in 2006 and it was alleged that the office bearers of the company misrepresented before the Screening Committee, Ministry of Coal (MoC), to procure allocation of the captive coal blocks.
The court said that the prosecution had proved the information related to the company’s net worth, promoters, previous allocations and syndication of debt were false and were false to the knowledge of the accused directors. The court noted that the accused directors made the misleading representation with the intention to deceive the MoC and the Government of India.
“Thus, when in the light of aforesaid observations of Hon’ble Supreme Court, the overall facts and circumstances of the present case are seen then it is crystal clear that the actions of the accused persons in making all such false claims knowing them to be false were actuated with an intention to deceive MoC and thereby Govt. of India. The intention to defraud on the part of accused persons is writ large on the face of record. It is also clear that all the acts committed by the accused persons have been fraudulently done with a dishonest intention. But for the deception and resulting dishonest and fraudulent inducement caused to the Screening Committee, the MoC and thus to the Govt. of India, there would have been no allocation of coal block to the accused company,” the court noted.
Furthermore, it was alleged that the company’s misrepresentations were overlooked by the MoC officials. The court said that the facts of the case clearly indicate that the accused bureaucrats – HC Gupta, KS Kropha and KC Samria – had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the office bearers of JLD – Vijay Darda, Devender Darda and Manoj Kumar Jayaswal – to procure allocation of Fatehpur East coal block in favour of JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd.
“Thus the said acts of entering into a criminal conspiracy to commit offence of criminal misconduct as defined under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 cannot be deemed to have been done in discharge of their official duty by the accused MoC officers,” the court said.
