NEW DELHI: A special court in Delhi on Thursday convicted former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, former Coal Secretary H C Gupta, and seven others in a case related to alleged irregularities in allocating a coal block in Chhattisgarh.
According to CBI, this is the 13th conviction in the coal scam-related case.
Special Judge Sanjay Bansal also convicted Darda's son Devender Darda, two senior public servants K S Kropha and K C Samria, M/s JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd and its Director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal.
The court held the accused guilty of criminal conspiracy (punishable under 120-B of IPC) and cheating (punishable under section 420 of IPC), and under relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act.
Quantum of punishment will be heard further on July 18.
The court accepted the submissions made by senior Public Prosecutor A P Singh, that the CBI was able to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts.
It had on November 20, 2014, refused to accept the CBI's closure report in the case and directed it to conduct further probe the matter, stating that the former MP had "misrepresented" facts in letters written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who then held the Coal portfolio.
The court had said that Vijay Darda, the Chairman of Lokmat Group, had done so to get the Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh allotted to JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd.
As per an earlier CBI statement, the coal scam is one of the biggest scams in the country and the impact of this scam is that companies are not coming forward to mine the coal blocks and despite ample coal provided by mother Earth, we are not able to extract coal and consequently there is a shortage of coal. We are compelled to import coal from outside India like Indonesia, Australia etc.