ROURKELA: The conviction of former Union Minister Dilip Ray in the coal scam by a special CBI court in New Delhi has come as a shock for his supporters . Raghu Bal, who has been with Ray for the last four decades said he felt uneasy after hearing the news and refused to comment any further.
Another supporter of Ray and president of Rourkela Bar Association (RBA) Ramesh Bal said, “The judgment of the CBI special court was unexpected. Even as the order has disheartened Ray’s followers, we have complete faith in the country’s judiciary. Ray has the scope of challenging the order in the high court and we hope he would come clean and the higher judiciary would set aside the verdict of the lower court.” Former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram did not comment on Ray’s conviction.
The political career of the former Union Minister of State for Coal (Independent Charge) spans nearly four decades in Janata Dal (now BJD), Congress and BJP. On November 30, 2018, he had quit BJP and also resigned from the Odisha Legislative Assembly expressing displeasure over inordinate delay in execution of two mega projects in Rourkela, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The CBI court in April 2017 had put Ray on trial by framing charges and he had pleaded innocence. However, his supporters are viewing the judgment as a bid by the Modi Government to buy silence from the belligerent leader. Ray and two others were on Monday convicted by the court in the alleged coal scam case of 1999 for irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Giridih of Jharkhand to Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL).