JIPL, its directors conspired to secure coal block: Court

Jharkhand Ispat Pvt Ltd (JIPL) Directors R C Rungta and R S Rungta had conspired and performed "overt acts" to achieve their common objective of securing allotment of a coal block in favour of their firm, a Special court today said.
The court observed it was evident that Rungtas had "consciously made false representation at different stages of processing of their application for allotment of a coal block both in Ministry of Steel and Ministry of Coal".
"Different roles were played by the accused persons in order to support the claim made by each other before different Government authorities. The existence of a common agreement amongst the accused persons is thus writ large on the face of record," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.

The court said this while holding JIPL and Rungtas guilty of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the IPC in a coal block allocation scam case.
"It will be suffice to state that undoubtedly the object of the criminal conspiracy so hatched was to procure allotment of a coal block in favour of JIPL only but towards achieving the said common object, the accused persons performed separate acts i.E. Overt acts and it cannot be stated that they form only one unit or that for the charge of criminal conspiracy to hold ground there ought to be another person also arrayed as accused," the judge said.

"The accused persons undoubtedly performed various acts at different points of time but it is clearly evident that all such acts performed by them were towards achieving the common objective of securing allotment of a coal block in favour of their company M/s JIPL of which they individually were also beneficiaries being director/chairman of the company.

"While performing all such acts each of the accused persons supported the stand/claim made by the other accused persons towards achieving the common object of the criminal conspiracy," the court said.
It termed as "fallacious" the contention of the Rungtas' counsel that they were acting on behalf of JIPL as a single unit and there ought to have been another person also for the offence of criminal conspiracy under the IPC.

"Certainly false representations were initially made before Steel Ministry which coaxed it to make a recommendation in favour M/s JIPL to MOC. Again on the basis of said false representations Screening Committee believing them to be true chose to make a recommendation in favour of M/s JIPL.
"The prosecution in my considered opinion has clearly been successful in proving its case against all the three accused persons i.E. M/s JIPL, R C Rungta and R S Rungta for the offence of criminal conspiracy i.E. Section 120-B IPC and for the offence of cheating i.E. Section 420 IPC and for the offence u/s 120-B/420 IPC beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts," it said.