Kropha gets bail in coal case

NEW DELHI: A special court hearing the case of alleged irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh to a private entity granted bail to Meghalaya Chief Secretary K.S Kropha, former coal secretary H.C Gupta and five others on Tuesday.
All the seven were granted bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of the same amount. The CBI has charged the accused with forgery, cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct.
Besides Kropha and Gupta, the five others who were granted bail are – SIPL directors Anil Gupta and Deepak Gupta, and three others, Amit Singh, Rakesh Singh and Jagan Nath Panda.
The accused persons and the firm were summoned by the court for allegedly misrepresenting the facts before the Screening Committee in relation to the land and net worth of SKS Ispat and Power Ltd (SIPL).
The court has now put up the matter for further proceedings on March 23.
It had summoned the accused after taking cognisance of the CBI charge sheet in which it had claimed that the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to cheat the Screening Committee in order to bag the mining contract for Fatehpur coal block in Chhattisgarh.
According to the CBI, SIPL had got Fatehpur coal block in Chhattisgarh in 2008. It said the company misrepresented on aspects of preparedness and was ineligible as per its net worth. The CBI had registered FIR in 2014.