NEW DELHI: A Delhi court Friday acquitted former coal ministry officials H C Gupta (secretary), K S Kropha (joint secretary), and K C Samaria (coal allocation director) in a case related to alleged irregularities in the allocation of Jharkhand’s Mahuagarhi coal block to JAS Infrastructure Capital Pvt Ltd, a private company.The court of special judge Sanjay Bansal has convicted the firm and its director, Manoj Kumar Jayaswal. Arguments on their sentence will be heard on July 8.CBI alleged, JAS Infrastructure misrepresented facts in its application and fraudulently obtained allocation of the coal block. The public servants acted in a manner detrimental to public interest and allowed the company to misappropriate nationalised natural resources, they said.In Dec 2016, a Delhi court framed charges for alleged offences under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. CBI had filed a closure report in April 2014 stating that no case was made out against the accused. But the court disagreed with CBI’s conclusion holding that a case was made out for taking cognisance of the alleged offences against the accused.In 2018, a Delhi court sentenced Gupta, Kropha, and Samaria to three years’ jail for irregularities in the allocation of two Bengal coal blocks. Then in 2017, the three were convicted for irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 54 cases being probed by CBI, 27 have been disposed of. The other half are still pending a decade later. With this case, CBI has achieved 19 convictions. Three of its cases have ended in acquittals and two in discharge.
