Coal Scam: Special CBI Court Reserves Ex-Minister Dilip Ray’s Sentencing Order till Oct 26

New Delhi: In a significant development, the special CBI court in Delhi has reserved its order on sentencing against recently convicted former Union Minister Dilip Ray and five others in a coal block allocation case to for October 26.

On October 6, Special Judge Bharat Parashar of Rouse Avenue Court had convicted Dilip Ray in a coal scam case pertains to allocation of 105.153 hectares of non-nationalized and abandoned coal mining area in Jharkhand’s Giridih district in favor of Castron Technologies Limited by 14th Screening Committee of the Ministry of Coal in 1999.

Besides Ray, who was Minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the court also convicted two senior officials of the Ministry of Coal at that time, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL), its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML).

The Special Judge had concluded that it is “beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts that all the convicts conspired together so as to procure allocation of a captive coal block — Brahmadiha coal block — in favor of Castron Technologies Limited.”

The court held them guilty of the offences under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.