Former coal secretary H C Gupta was awarded two-year-imprisonment by a special court in a coal scam case. Special CBI Judge Bharat Parasher also sentenced two senior government officials, K S Kropha and K C Samaria, for two-year imprisonment in the case.
Besides the jail term, the court also imposed a fine of Rs. one lakh each on the three convicts. Besides them, the court imposed a fine of Rs. one crore on convicted private firm Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd, while its Managing Director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia was awarded three-year jail term and also have to pay a fine of Rs. 30 lakh.
The three former officers in the Ministry of Coal (MoC) were convicted under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal conspiracy and cheating and under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PCC), for obtaining undue pecuniary advantage, against the public interest, for M/s Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL).
Gupta and two serving senior officials were earlier convicted by the court for irregularities in the allocation of the Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to a private firm.
During the hearing, the CBI had alleged that the application filed by KSSPL for the coal block was incomplete and was supposed to be rejected by the ministry as it was not in accordance with the guidelines issued.
In November 2006, the UPA government, desiring to relieve the coal shortages crippling the economy, invited applications from end-users of coal in power, steel and cement sectors for allotment of captive coal mining licences. For 38 coal blocks, 1,422 applications were received from 344 companies.
But this gigantic liberalisation measure quickly acquired notoriety. A tsunami of public revulsion at the alleged, rampant corruption in allotment followed. In August 2012, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), India’s public auditor, was leaked. It assessed the loss to the treasury from incorrect coal allocations between 2004 and 2009 at Rs 10.7 lakh crore.
The Vigilance Commission waded in righteously and referred the case of allotment of the Thesgora B/Rudrapuri block in Madhya Pradesh to the CBI for a preliminary investigation on June 1, 2012.
