The High Court of Delhi on Wednesday granted bail to H.C. Gupta, former Secretary of the Union Ministry of Coal and K.C. Kropha, IAS in the Chhattisgarh coal block allocation scam case.
While granting bail to Gupta and Kropha, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma noted that the accused have been awarded imprisonment of three years and that they have been granted bail in similar cases earlier as well.
The High Court issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and listed the matter for further consideration along with the appeals filed by other convicts in the case.
Earlier on July 28, the same Single-Judge Bench had granted interim bail to former Parliamentarian Vijay Darda, his son Devender Darda and businessman Manoj Kumar Jayaswal in the case.
The High Court passed the verdict on petitions challenging the July 26 order of a trial court, which convicted and sentenced the accused to four-year imprisonment in the case.
Justice Sharma further issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), seeking its response within eight weeks.
The former Rajya Sabha MP, his son and businessman Jayaswal were convicted in a case related to irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh.
Special Judge, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Sanjay Bansal had observed on July 26 that the accused had obtained the block by cheating the government.
The Rouse Avenue District Court had also awarded three-year sentence to former Coal Secretary Gupta and two IAS officers K.S. Kropha and K.C. Samaria.
However, the trial court granted bail to these three accused, in order to enable them to challenge their conviction before the High Court.
The court had further sentenced Director of JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd Manoj Kumar Jayaswal to four-year jail sentence. M/s JLD Yavatmal was fined Rs 50 lakh.