[Coal Scam] CBI Court convicts former coal secretary HC Gupta, two others for conspiracy

A Delhi Court on Friday convicted former secretary of Coal Ministry, HC Gupta, Joint Secretary KS Kropha and former director of Grace Industries Limited (GIL) along with its former Director for conspiring to cheat the government for the allocation of Lohara East coal block to GIL [CBI v M/s Grace Industries Limited]..The three were convicted for for the offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the Indian Penal Code as well as criminal misconduct by a public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act.The judgment was delivered by Special Judge (PC Act) CBI Arun Bhardwaj. “The evidence on record as encapsulated above shows that there was criminal conspiracy amongst M/s. Grace Industries Ltd, Sh. Mukesh Gupta, Sh. H.C. Gupta and Sh. K.S. Kropha for procuring recommendation of allocation of Lohara East Coal Block in favour of M/s Grace Industries,” read the order.The special judge will now hear the case on the aspect of sentencing on August 4, 2022. .While discussing the charge of conspiracy, it was noted that when the wrongly mentioned existing capacity of the plant was brought to the notice of HC Gupta, he merely initiated a complaint and marked Kropha.“There were no ripples in spite of coming to know that M/s. Grace Industries Ltd had made false representations regarding kiln infrastructure and production capacity," the Court said. .It was further noted that in most cases, conspiracy was not supported by direct proof and was backed only by circumstantial evidence. The judge underscored that such evidence should unerringly point to the guilt of the accused, and there shouldn’t be any other hypothesis compatible with the innocence of the accused and the chain of events should be complete without there being any vital break in the chain.In this case, the same was satisfied, the Court held.“In the opinion of this court, the circumstantial evidence noted above is sufficient to return a finding that there was a criminal conspiracy amongst these four accused persons for securing recommendation of Screening Committee in favour of M/s Grace Industries Ltd and for allocation of Lohara East Coal Block in favour of M/s GIL.”.The three accused and the company were, therefore, held guilty. .Another former director of GIL, Seema Gupta and the ex-director of Geology & Mining, Maharashtra Vishwas Sawakhande were acquitted..The issue had germinated when two parliamentarians, Prakash Javadekar and Hans Raj Ahir, along with one one political leader advocate Bhupendra Yadav made a complaint to the Central Vigilance Commissioner in March 2012 regarding corruption by Ministry of Coal officials by free allotment of coal during the period of 2006-2009.As per the charge sheet, the accused in the years between 2005 – 2011 entered into a criminal conspiracy with the object of cheating the Ministry of Coal to procure allocation of “Lohara East Coal Block” in favour of GIL.The charge sheet stipulated that this conspiracy was carried out by making false claims about the company’s net worth, equipment, existing capacity, status of procurement and installation of plant and machinery in the application form..[Read Judgment]