By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: In a major setback , Former Union Minister and Hotel Mayfair Lagoon Group Chairman, Dilip Ray has been convicted by the Delhi Special Court in a case pertaining to irregularities in allocation of a Jharkhand coal block. Special Judge Bharat Parashar convicted Dilip Ray, former Minister of State (coal) in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, for criminal conspiracy and other offences.
The case pertains to allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.He is the first Minister to be convicted in coal scam. However, the Judge has ordered all accused to remain present before the court on the day of sentencing, which is scheduled on October 14.
Besides, Court has also convicted two the then senior officials of the Ministry of Coal Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL), its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML).
The case pertains to the alleged irregularities in allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridh in Jharkhand to Castron Technologies Limited in 1999.The framing of charge order further read “secondly, during the aforesaid period and in furtherance of common object of the criminal conspiracy” they all did “various acts of cheating and criminal misconduct and criminal breach of trust by public servant and substantive charges framed separately and you all thereby committed offences punishable under Section 120-B read with 409/420 IPC and 13 (1)(c) & 13 (1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988”.
While framing charges the CBI Judge had held that the five “entered into a criminal conspiracy” to procure allocation of Brahmadiha coal in favour of M/s Castron Technologies Limited by adopting various “illegal means viz by making false claims about the proposed end use projects in different applications”.And that, the Court had held “by various acts of omission and commission amounting to criminal misconduct/cheating and criminal breach of trust by public servant by all the accused persons committed the offence of criminal conspiracy and within my cognizance”.
Dilip Ray was Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Coal during Vajpayee-led NDA government in 1999. Earlier, Dilip had pleaded innocence before the Court and requested for a speedy trial of case against him. Ray is the only Odia parliamentarian to be part of the Ministry of three Prime Ministers.
