New Delhi: Special Judge at Rouse Avenue Court, Arun Bhardwaj, on Monday sentenced former coal secretary HC Gupta to three years imprisonment. Gupta was convicted in the 2012 Maharashtra coal block allocation case.
The court has sentenced former joint secretary KS Krofa for two years and Grace Industries director Mukesh Gupta for four years. The court had on August 4, reserved its decision on the matter of the period of sentence after hearing arguments from both the sides. On July 29, Court had convicted Gupta and Krofa of corruption. In the 197-page judgment, Court had said that Gupta, in three meetings with the former Prime Minister’s Chief Secretary, gave him false information regarding the allocation of Maharashtra’s Lohara East coal block.
The CBI had registered a case in this case on September 20, 2012. The four convicts were accused of hatching a criminal conspiracy to cheat the coal minister and the central government. These culprits conspired and helped in getting the allocation of Lohara East coal block to Grace Industries. The convicts gave false information about the total assets of Grace Industries.
Gupta has been convicted in the three coal block allocation scam case before this. Delhi’s Patiala House Court on December 16, 2020, sentenced Gupta to three years’ imprisonment in another coal block allocation case in Jharkhand. On December 5, 2018, Gupta was convicted in the case of irregularities in the allocation of Moira and Madhujor coal blocks of West Bengal. On December 16, 2017, he was convicted in the allocation of Rajhara Koel block in Jharkhand.