A special CBI court in Delhi on Wednesday reserved its order on the sentencing of former union minister Dilip Ray and others in a coal scam case pertaining to the alleged irregularities in the allocation of a Jharkhand coal block in 1999.
Special Judge Bharat Parashar, who is hearing the coal scam cases, reserved his order on the quantum of sentence for October 26 after concluding the arguments.
The lawyers representing the convicts argued for less punishment and cited various grounds of health, age and family responsibilities. They also submitted that the convicts have no previous criminal background.
Whereas, the counsel of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitted that the convicts should be awarded the maximum punishments.
The special court had recently convicted Dilip Ray, two then senior officials of the Ministry of Coal (MoC) -- Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL), its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML) in the case for charges dealing with criminal conspiracy and other offences.
Ray was a former Minister of State for the Ministry of Coal during the then National Democratic Alliance government.
The CBI, in its chargesheet, had booked these accused under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The case pertains to the allocation of the Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih of Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.
( With inputs from ANI )
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