Ex-minister acquitted in 1 more bitumen scam case

PATNA: Former road construction department (RCD) minister and RJD MLA from Dehri, Illiyas Hussain, was acquitted by a special CBI court in another bitumen scam case on Friday on the ground of lack of evidence. Two other accused in the case – the then deputy director of RCD Mujtaba Ahmed and Shobha Sinha – were also acquitted by the special court-II judge Sarvajeet.
However, the court sentenced another accused, Viplab Kumar Das, to three years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 2.5 lakh on him under three different sections of IPC. Viplab was the proprietor of Oriental Transport, a Kolkata-based firm used for transportation of bitumen. Hussain presently represents the Dehri assembly seat.
Two more bitumen scam cases involving Hussain are pending with the court. Earlier, on May 24 this year, the same court had acquitted Hussain, Ahmed and Sinha and two others in a case pertaining to embezzlement of around 740 metric tonne bulk bitumen worth around Rs 38.9 lakh. The court had convicted only Krishna Kumar Kedia, proprietor of Cosmo Trans, a Kolkata-based transport frim, for to three years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 4.5 lakh on him.
Hussain was the RCD minister during the regime of RJD chief Lalu Prasad when the Rs 200 crore bitumen scam surfaced in 1990s. Several hundred metric tonnes of bulk bitumen were picked up from oil refineries by forging government documents in connivance with government officials and were later sold in open market.
The case which came up for hearing in the special court on Friday was related to embezzlement of around 450 metric tonnes of bulk bitumen worth around Rs 25 lakh, which was picked by Viplab from Haldia refinery on the pretext of construction of a bridge over the Ganga at Naugachiya. Although bitumen was not required for the construction of the bridge, the consignment was picked up from Haldia and shown as delivered. Signature of a senior RCD engineer was forged to seal the deal. The construction was at initial phase when bitumen was picked up from Haldia refinery.
Of the seven accused in the case, three, including the then RCD purchase director Panchu Mehta, Tapan Kumar Das and Tanmay Kumar Das died during the course of trial. Tapan and Tanmay were the partners in the transport firm of Viplab.