Coal scam case: Delhi HC suspends jail term of former Union minister Dilip Ray

Ray had been sentenced to three years in jail by a Special CBI Court, in a case pertaining to the allocation of 105.153 hectares of a coal mining area in Jharkhand’s Giridh district.

Dilip Ray, Dilip Ray coal scam, Dilip Ray coal blocks allocation scam, Coal Scam, Vajpayee Govt, atal bihari vajpayee, Indian Express, India News, latest News

Dilip Ray was a Union minister under Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999. (File)

A DAY after he was awarded three years in jail by a Special CBI Court in a coal scam case, the Delhi High Court Tuesday suspended the sentence of former Union minister Dilip Ray.

Ray’s application for suspension of sentence came up for hearing before the single-judge bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait. “The sentence has been suspended and the case has been fixed for hearing on November 23,” said advocate Chandra Prakash, who represents Ray in the case.

The case in which Ray was convicted on October 6 and sentenced on Monday pertains to the allocation of 105.153 hectares of a coal mining area in Jharkhand’s Giridh district to Castron Technologies Limited (CTL) by the Union ministry of coal’s Screening Committee in 1999.

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While sentencing Ray, the special CBI court had observed that he “abused his official position” as his decision of “relaxation of policy without any logical or legal basis amounts to gross abuse of his powers…”.

Ray was convicted along with five others: CTL; its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla; two senior Coal ministry officials Pradip Kumar Banerjee (then additional secretary) and Nitya Nand Gautam (then advisor, projects); and Castron Mining Ltd.

Besides Ray, who was Minister of State for Coal in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Special Judge Bharat Parashar handed three-year jail terms to two Banerjee, Gautam and Agarwalla.

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