Coal scam case: Delhi court convicts Ranchi-based company, its directors

NEW DELHI: A

Delhi court

on Tuesday convicted a Ranchi-based company, its three directors and a chartered accountant in a coal scam case for allegedly misrepresenting facts to bag a

coal block in Jharkhand

.


The court held the company M/S

Domco

Pvt Ltd, its three directors Binay Prakash, Vasant Diwakar Manjrekar and Parmananda Mondal and chartered accountant Sanjay Khandelwal guilty of the offences of cheating and criminal conspiracy, punishable under Indian Penal Code.

In his order, Special CBI Judge Arun Bharadwaj also acquitted a chartered accountant Manoj Kumar Gupta for want of evidence.

The court will hear arguments on quantum of sentence on September 15.

According to the CBI, the accused company had applied to the steel ministry for allotment of a captive coal block to set up a pig iron plant of two lakh tonnes per annum capacity at Rairangpur in Odisha through its director Prakash.

On the asking of the ministry in November 2000, the firm had also submitted an application for allotment of coal block to the ministry of coal (MOC), the CBI said.

CBI said that on the basis of information and documents furnished, MOC proceeded to finally allocate Lalgarh (North) Coal Block in West Bokaro Coal Fields of Jharkhand in favour of the firm for their plant at Rairangpur.

CBI has alleged that during the probe, it was found that the company had misrepresented to the ministries of steel and coal on a number of counts.

It had claimed that a conspiracy was hatched by the firm and its directors with various other persons to induce the MOC to allot a captive coal block in its favour.