Coal scam case: Delhi High Court grants interim bail to former MP Vijay Darda and two others

The Delhi High Court on Friday granted interim bail to former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Vijay Darda, his son Devender Darda and director of JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd Manoj Kumar Jayaswal in case related to irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh..Dardas and Jayaswal were sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment by the trial court on July 26, 2023. Former Secretary of the Ministry of Coal, HC Gupta as well as bureaucrats KC Kropha and KC Samria were also convicted in the case and ordered to undergo three years of imprisonment. Dardas and Jayaswal filed the present appeal against this order and sought suspension of sentence stating that the trial court judgement is replete with contradictions and they were never arrested in the case. .Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma heard the matter and granted them interim bail subject to furnishing bail bond of ₹10 lakh each and two sureties of the same amount. The Bench also issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ordered them to file their response to the plea within eight weeks. Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal and Advocate Vijay Aggarwal appeared for Vijay Darda, Devendra Darda and Manoj Kumar Jayaswal.CBI was represented through Senior Advocate RS Cheema.The trial court had held all the accused guilty of offences under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. This was the thirteenth conviction in the coal scam case. .The case relates to allocation of coal blocks which were advertised in 2006. It was alleged that JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd had concealed various facts in its application form in order to obtain wrongful gain in the allocation of the coal block. It was said that the coal block was allocated to JLD as a result of active collaboration between the office bearers of the company and the officials of the Ministry of Coal (MoC) - Gupta, Kropha and Samria. While Gupta was then Coal Secretary and Chairman of the Screening Committee, Kropha was posted as Joint Secretary in the MoC and was the Member Convener of the Screening Committee. Samria was also posted in the MoC and the allegation was that all the applications were received in his office and his office supervised the entire process of processing the applications right through the entire process of allocation of coal blocks. The CBI had filed a closure report in the case on April 15, 2014 stating that there was no material to show commission of any criminal conspiracy of cheating. However, the closure report was rejected by the Court in November 2014. .In its order convicting the accused, the trial court said that private parties had committed the offence of cheating and there was active connivance with the officials of the MoC. On the role of the public servants, the court said that they must be liable for their actions and even though the guidelines issued by the MoC to govern the allocation of captive coal blocks may not be termed as law under Article 13 of the Constitution, they were binding upon the officers. The court added that the allocation of a coal block to an ineligible company is against public interest and the actions of the three officers conclusively show that their efforts were to somehow recommend allocation of the coal block in favour of JLD.