A Delhi court on Friday acquitted former coal secretary HC Gupta, ex-joint secretary KS Kropha, and then director KC Samaria in a coal scam case linked to the allocation of the Mahugarhi coal block in Jharkhand.
However, the court convicted JAS Infrastructure Capital Ltd and its then director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal for cheating and criminal conspiracy in securing the coal block allocation.
This marks Gupta’s second acquittal in coal block allocation cases. He has been convicted in five other related cases, with appeals currently pending before the Delhi High Court. The CBI has also challenged his acquittal in the first case.
In total, the CBI has filed 19 cases against Gupta, of which 12 are still pending before trial courts. As of now, 29 corruption cases arising from the coal scam remain pending before two special courts, while 27 have been disposed of.
Special Judge Sanjay Bansal, while delivering the verdict, fixed July 8 for arguments on sentencing in the case against JAS Infrastructure and Jayaswal.
The case was initiated by the CBI on a reference from the Central Vigilance Commission, focusing on alleged corruption in the allocation of coal blocks between 2006 and 2009. The FIR alleged that JAS Infrastructure Capital Pvt Ltd and its director concealed and misrepresented key facts in their application to qualify for allocation of the Mahugarhi coal block.
According to the CBI, the company made false claims about its financial net worth and misrepresented debt appraisals by financial institutions. It also allegedly concealed previous coal block allocations to other group companies and dishonestly presented the net worth of unrelated third-party firms—Inertia Iron & Steel Industries Pvt. Ltd. and IL&FS—as its own.
The CBI had initially filed a closure report in the case in November 2014, but the special court took cognisance and framed charges against all accused.
The CBI, represented by Special Public Prosecutor R.S. Cheema and a team of public prosecutors, examined 18 prosecution witnesses to support its case.
In a statement, the CBI confirmed that this is the 19th conviction in coal block allocation cases investigated by the agency.
The Supreme Court, in a landmark 2014 judgment, had quashed 214 coal block allocations made between 1993 and 2010, following two public interest petitions. It directed trial by a special CBI court, and later expanded the number of courts to two to handle the volume of cases.
Separately, the Enforcement Directorate had informed the Supreme Court in January this year that 45 complaints (equivalent to chargesheets under PMLA), including supplementary ones, remain pending in coal scam-linked matters.