Bail granted to ex-coal secretary, 2 bureaucrats after 2-year jail sentence

Bail was granted to former coal secretary H C Gupta minutes after he was today awarded two-year-imprisonment by a special court here in a coal scam case.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parasher also sentenced two senior government officials, K S Kropha and K C Samaria, for two-year imprisonment in the case, who also were granted bails.

All the convicts were granted bail soon after the sentence was announced to enable them move the High Court.

Besides the jail term, the court also imposed a fine of Rs one lakh each on the three convicts.

Besides them, the court imposed a fine of Rs one crore on convicted private firm Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL), while its Managing Director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia was awarded three-year jail term by the court.

Ahluwalia will also have to pay a fine of Rs 30 lakh.

Gupta and two serving senior officials were earlier convicted by the court for irregularities in the allocation of of the Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to a private firm.