Coalscam: RSPL top officials get jail for "unscrupulous acts"

Three top officials of Rathi Steel and Power Ltd (RSPL), convicted in a coal blocks allocation scam case, were today awarded varying jail terms of up to three years by a special court which observed that the country as a whole has suffered loss due to their "unscrupulous acts".
RSPL's 34- year-old Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Udit Rathi and 60- year-old Managing Director (MD) Pradeep Rathi were sentenced to three years imprisonment while its 35-year- old AGM Kushal Aggarwal was awarded two years jail term.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar also imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh each on the convicted firm RSPL and its CEO, Rs 25 lakh on the MD and Rs five lakh on the AGM in the case pertaining to irregularities in allocation of Kesla North coal block in Chhattisgarh to the company.

Regarding the convicts' submission that no loss was caused to anyone as coal was not extracted, the court said "it would be suffice to state that non-extraction of the coal in itself has caused huge loss to the country".
"Non-availability of such an important raw material has in fact caused an immense loss to the country in its journey to achieve higher infrastructural/industrial development.
"Thus, it is the country as a whole which has suffered loss on account of such unscrupulous acts of the convict persons," the court said.

The conviction in RSPL case was the second one, while in the first matter, the court had in April awarded a four-year jail term to Jharkhand Ispat Private Limited directors R C Rungta and R S Rungta in a coal block allocation scam case.

The convicts, taken into custody after their conviction yesterday, were granted bail on a personal bond of Rs two lakh each and a surety of like amount as the court allowed their plea to suspend their sentence for one month for filing an appeal in the higher court against their conviction and jail term.
While issuing the release warrant, the court also granted them time till August 2 for depositing the fine.
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In its order, the court said, "Of late, anti-social activities of persons of the upper social economic strata of the society in their occupation, which have come to be known as 'white collar crimes', have attracted attention."

"Undoubtedly, such white collar crimes are more dangerous to the the society than the ordinary crimes, for the damage it inflicts on public morale and at the same time the financial losses caused are much higher," it said.
The court had yesterday held RSPL and its three officials guilty, observing that they had "deceived" the government by making false representation even before the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The court had convicted them of the offences, including cheating (IPC section 420) and criminal conspiracy (section 120-B).
The court, in its judgement, observed that these accused, in pursuance to the conspiracy hatched, deceived the Ministry of Coal (MoC) on the basis of false representation regarding the issue of land showing a higher stage of progress made by them towards establishing end-use project to procure allotment of coal block in its favour.

After holding them guilty, the court had heard the arguments on the quantum of sentence during which CBI sought maximum sentence while the convicts prayed for leniency.
"MoC, Government of India clearly stood cheated on account of dishonest acts of accused persons resulting in allotment of 'Kesla North Coal Block' in favour of company of accused persons i.E. M/s RSPL," the court had said.
The court had earlier framed charges against RSPL and the officials for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy read with cheating under the IPC, observing that they had conspired and furnished wrong information to get the coal block and misappropriated nationalised natural resources.

All the accused had denied the charges levelled against them.