Coal scam: Delhi court to pronounce quantum of sentence on July 26

A court in Delhi will pronounce the quantum of sentence for former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda excoal secretary H C Gupta and others on July 26 in a case related to irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh PTI reportedSpecial Judge Sanjay Bansal on Tuesday reserved the order after hearing arguments from the CBI as well as the accused persons the report saidIn the 13th conviction in the coal scam the scandal which rocked the erstwhile Manmohan Singh government the court on July 13 convicted seven accused including Darda and Gupta under sections 120B criminal conspiracy and 420 cheating of the IPC and under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption ActThe court had also convicted Dardas son Devender Darda two senior public servants K S Kropha and K C Samria Ms JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd and its director Manoj Kumar JayaswalDuring the argument on the quantum of sentence the CBI sought maximum punishment claiming that Darda and his son Devender Darda also convicted in the case had met former CBI director Ranjit Sinha at his residence to scuttle the investigation The Supreme Court had constituted an SIT to investigate Sinhas role into prima facie allegations against him for trying to influence the probe in coal scam casesCBIs senior Public Prosecutor A P Singh further claimed that a witness in the case stated that he was threatened by Jayaswal who tried to influence him to not depose against himThe convict persons face a maximum punishment of sevenyear jail termThe court had on November 20 2014 refused to accept a closure report submitted by the CBI in the case and directed the federal probe agency to investigate it afresh stating that the former MP had misrepresented facts in letters written to the then prime minister Manmohan Singh who held the coal portfolioThe court said Vijay Darda the chairperson of the Lokmat Group had done so to secure the Fatehpur East coal block in Chhattisgarh for JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt LtdThe Lokmat Group is a multi platform media company based in MaharashtraAlso readSupreme Court grants bail to activist Teesta Setalvad in postgodhra riots case rejects Gujarat HC orderThe court said that the offence of cheating was committed by private parties in furtherance of a conspiracy hatched between them and public servantsJLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd was allotted Fatehpur East coal block by the 35th Screening CommitteeThe CBI had alleged in its FIR that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies in 19992005 but the agency later filed a closure report saying no undue benefit was extended to JLD Yavatmal by the coal ministry in allocation of coal blocksA major scandal had rocked the Manmohan Singh government in 2012 after the Comptroller and Auditor General CAG panned the government for inefficient allocation of 194 coal blocks to public sector enterprises and private companies between 2004 and 2009 for captive use in a nontransparent wayIt said instead of allocating the valuable natural resource the government should have gone for competitive biddingMany politicians were claimed to have lobbied for private entities and helped them secure these blocks Several entities got more blocks for mining than they needed and sold the excess coal in the open market resulting in huge windfallThe CAG initially estimated a massive loss of Rs 106 lakh crore to the exchequer but its final report tabled in Parliament put the figure at 186 lakh crore PTI