Ex-NDA minister Dilip Ray gets 3-year jail in coal case

A Special CBI court docket on Monday sentenced former union minister of state for coal, Dilip Ray, 66, to 3 years for illegally allocating, in 1999, a Jharkhand coal block to a non-public firm Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL).

The particular CBI decide, Bharat Parashar, noticed that the Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih, Jharkhand was allotted to Castron Technologies Ltd in 1999 by Dilip Ray, the then minister of state (Mos) for coal even supposing he was a part of a “caretaker” authorities, which shouldn’t have taken a significant coverage determination.

Ray was a part of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA authorities that was performing as a caretaker authorities when this explicit allocation was permitted by Ray.

Besides Ray, two former senior officers of the coal ministry, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, in addition to Mahendra Aggarwalla of Castron Technologies Ltd have additionally been sentenced to three-year jail phrases and fined ₹10 lakh every. The decide additionally imposed fines of ₹60 lakh on Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL) and ₹10 lakh on Castron Mining Ltd (CML).

The accused have been convicted on October 6 for prison conspiracy, prison breach of belief, dishonest and prevention of corruption act.

In his conviction judgment on October 6, Parashar mentioned: “Undoubtedly, the approval of said guidelines for allotment of captive coal blocks for opencast mining and underground mining amounts to taking a major policy decision and which Dilip Ray as part of a Caretaker government should not have taken. The question which however requires examination is as to whether the impugned decision was necessary for day to day administration or it could have waited till the new elected government was formed”.

Ray’s lawyer Manu Sharma mentioned: “We are going to challenge this particular assertion about caretaker government because CBI never brought up this charge during investigation or trial.”

Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), V S Sampath mentioned: “There is nothing like a caretaker government. A government is a government”. Still, the Election Commission additionally clarified in 2018 {that a} caretaker authorities in states ought to desist from taking any main coverage choices.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, who has represented varied accused in coal rip-off circumstances, mentioned: “I am very surprised at conviction under section 409 of the IPC (criminal breach of trust by a public servant) as the same court in the past has acquitted people charged under 409 IPC in view of three-judge bench judgment of Supreme Court.” His reference to the SC’s three-judge ruling is a couple of 1999 order in Common Cause Vs Union of India matter through which the apex court docket mentioned that the ability of a minister to allot a property as a consequence of discretionary powers over coping with a specific good shouldn’t be lined by prison breach of belief.

Aggarwal added that the sentence was not harsh.

Parashar, whereas sentencing Ray and others, noticed on Monday that “the loss from ordinary crimes such as burglaries, robberies and larcenies etc. may run into few thousand rupees only but the loss from white collar crimes may run not only in lacs but in crores of rupees”.

“Though on the face of it, the arguments of learned counsels for the convict(ed) companies that no loss was caused to anyone in the present matter since almost the entire amount of extracted coal was surrendered back to the government while surrendering back the lease deed, seems to be attractive. However, non-availability of sufficient raw material such as coal has in fact resulted in the lack of infrastructural/industrial development of the country. Had coal block been allocated to a deserving applicant company after following the due process of law and the company would have proceeded to extract coal so as to use it captively in its end use project then it would have certainly added to the infrastructural/industrial development of the country,” the order mentioned.

“…suffice to state that arbitrary allocation of coal blocks as has been seen in the present matter to unscrupulous persons who never intended to establish any end use project in itself has caused huge loss to the nation which is difficult to be computable in monetary terms,” Parashar noticed.

The case pertains to allocation of 105.153 hectares (ha) of an deserted coal mining space in Jharkhand’s Giridih district in favour of Castron Technologies Limited by the 14th screening committee of the Union coal ministry in 1999.

It is totally different from the investigative company’s probe into improper allocation of captive coal blocks between 2004 and 2009 — a scandal that roiled the United Progressive Alliance headed by Manmohan Singh.

Ray, a hotelier, was one of many founding members of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) within the 1990s. The BJD was a part of the short-lived Vajpayee authorities that was in energy for 13 months. He left the BJD in 2002 (he was truly expelled) however returned to the Rajya Sabha (to which he had been elected in 1996) as an impartial with the assist of some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers from Odisha.

He joined the Congress in 2004, and returned to the BJP in 2009, truly successful the Rourkela meeting election on the occasion’s ticket in 2014. By then, nonetheless, the CBI case towards him had been registered on the occasion of the Supreme Court. In 2017, expenses have been framed towards him and in 2018, he give up the BJP and likewise politics.