Jharkhand 1999 coal scam: Court convicts former NDA minister Dilip Ray

Former Union minister Dilip Ray was on Tuesday convicted by a special court here in a coal scam case pertaining to irregularities in the allocation of a Jharkhand coal block in 1999.

Special Judge Bharat Parashar convicted Ray, former minister of state (coal) in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, for criminal conspiracy and other offences.

The court also convicted two senior officials of the Ministry of Coal at that time, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL), its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd (CML).

The court will hear arguments on the quantum of sentence on October 14.

The case pertains to allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.