On Monday, a special CBI Court granted bail to Ex-Union Minister Dilip Ray & others after sentencing them to 3 years in prison in connection with the alleged irregularities in the allocation of a Jharkhand coal block in 1999.

Special Judge Bharat Parashar granted bail to all convicts on a personal bail bond of Rs 1 lakh each after they apprised the Court that they are going in the appeal against the judgment.

The CBI Court had earlier today awarded 3-year imprisonment to Dilip Ray & three other individuals. Besides Ray, the Court also awarded 3-year jail term each to 2 senior officials of the Ministry of Coal at that time, Pradip Kumar Banerjee & Nitya Nand Gautam & Castron Technologies Ltd's (CTL) director Mahendra Kumar Agarwal.

The Court, along with imprisonment, also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Ray, Rs 2 lakh each on Banerjee & Gautam, while Agarwalla was asked to pay a fine of Rs 60 lakh. The Court further imposed Rs 60 lakh on CLT & Rs 10 lakh on Castron Mining Ltd (CML).

The Court in its order observed that "The criminal behaviour of such "whitecollar criminals", which may include businessman, industrialists, entrepreneurs, traders, politicians, bureaucrats or well-qualified professionals can not be simply explained on the basis of various theories developed to explain the causation of traditional crimes such as poverty or lack of infrastructural facilities or recreational facilities or feeble-mindedness or emotional instability".

Ray was an Ex-Minister of State for the Ministry of Coal during the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Govt.

The Court had, while convicting the accused persons, had said it has been now concluded beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts that all the five accused persons conspired together so as to procure allocation of a captive coal block & achieved the said object of the criminal conspiracy by undertaking various acts of cheating.

The CBI, in its charge sheet, had booked these accused under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) & 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code & under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The case pertains to the allocation of the Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih of Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.

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