Ex-coal secretary HC Gupta, two govt officials get bail

Former coal secretary and four others, including two serving government officials, were today granted bail by a Special Court in connection with a coal blocks allocation scam case.
The five accused including H C Gupta and two senior serving government servants K S Kropha and K C Samaria appeared before the court in pursuance to the summons issued against them and sought bail in the case.
After hearing the arguments, Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar granted bail to all the accused.
Besides Gupta, the then Joint Secretary, Kropha, and the then Director (Coal Allocation-I section), Samaria, Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh-based firm Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL) Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia, Chartered Accountant Amit Goyal and authorised representative of the company appeared before the court.

All of them were already summoned as accused for offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) under the IPC. Only Gupta has been summoned before the offences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court had summoned them as accused in the case while refusing to accept the closure report filed by the CBI in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal block to KSSPL.
The court had yesterday allowed CBI to carry out further probe in the case, saying the agency may place records of the case before the authorities for grant of sanction to prosecute the public servants.

The court had also asked CBI to file a progress report of its further investigation on December 15 and said the agency should be at a liberty to probe any other aspect of the matter if found necessary by them.