From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI: In a major embarrassment to the Meghalaya Government, a CBI special court on Friday convicted Chief Secretary K.S Kropha in the former UPA government’s coal scam.
Besides Kropha, who was a joint secretary in the Coal Ministry during the time of the scam, two others — former coal secretary H.C Gupta and then director K.C Samaria — were also convicted in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd.
The quantum of punishment will be announced on Monday, special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.
This is the third conviction in the scam and Gupta was earlier accused in other cases related to ‘Coalgate’.
Gupta, Kropha and Samaria have been convicted of criminal conspiracy under IPC and criminal misconduct by a civil servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Gupta, however, has been acquitted of criminal breach of trust charge under IPC and the court has acquitted chartered accountant Amit Goyal.
The court also convicted Kamal Sponge Steel and its managing director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia.
During the hearing, the CBI alleged that the application filed by the firm was incomplete.
The ministry should have rejected it as it was not in accordance with the guidelines issued.
The CBI also charged that the firm had misrepresented its net worth and existing capacity and even the state government had not recommended the firm for the coal block.
The accused denied the allegations during the arguments. The court had in October last year framed charges against the accused observing that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was kept in the “dark” by Gupta, who had prima facie violated the law and the trust reposed in him on the issue of coal block allocation.
The trial in and probe into coal scam cases had begun in the wake of allegations of widespread irregularities in the allotment of coal blocks between 2004 and 2009.
The Supreme Court had cancelled 214 coal blocks in September 2014. Several big companions, including Jindal Steel and Hindalco, are accused in these cases.
In a draft report issued in 2014, the Comptroller and Auditor General accused the Government of India of allocating coal blocks in an inefficient manner that cost the national exchequer crores of rupees while private players benefited.