New Delhi: Former Union Minister Dilip Ray was granted bail soon after a Special CBI court here sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in the 1999 Jharkhand coal scam on Monday. He was asked to furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh.
Ray was Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Coal during Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government in 1999 and this case pertains to allocation of 105.153 hectares of abandoned Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to the Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL).
Two other senior officials of the then coal ministry — Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam and CTL director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML) — convicted in the case have also been awarded 3-year jail term each.
Notably, the court on October 6 had convicted the former Union minister for criminal conspiracy in connection with the coal block allocation.
Also Read: Coal Scam: Three-Year Jail Term For Former Odisha MP Dilip Ray