Special Court convicts pvt firm, its directors in allocation of Patrapara coal block case

A Special Court on Thursday convicted Adhunik Corporation Ltd and two of its directors for irregularities, cheating, forgery criminal conspiracy in connection with the allocation of Patrapara coal block.

After pronouncing the judgment, the court directed the authorities to take the convicts into custody.

Special CBI Judge Arun Bhardwaj on Thursday passed the judgement and said, "All the charges framed against M/s Adhunik Corporation Limited are proved and is convicted for the offence under IPC sections 120B, 420 and 471."

All the charges framed against Nirmal Kumar Agarwal are proved and he is convicted for the offence under IPC sections 120B, 420 and 471 IPC. Mahesh Kumar Agarwal is convicted for the offence under section 120B, 420, 471 and 511 of IPC, said the court.

After passing the judgement the court said it will hear the arguments on the quantum of sentence Friday where they may get a maximum seven-year jail term.

As per the chargesheet, the West Bengal Pollution Control Board had issued consent to operate two numbers of rotary kilns with a capacity of 100 metric tons per day (MTPD) and 80 metric tons per day (MTPD), totalling 180 MTPD. Therefore, the sponge iron production capacity of M/s ACPL at their plant at Durgapur was 180 MTPD (54,000 metric tons per year considering 300 working days in a year as per the norms of MoS). Therefore, according to CBI, M/s ACPL was not having 72,000 TPY existing sponge iron capacity as was falsely mentioned in their letter dated April 7, 2003.

"During the course of the investigation, it was found that M/s Adhunik Corporation Ltd had misrepresented on various aspects both to Ministry of Steel and thereby to Ministry of Coal with a view to cheat them so as to procure allocation of Patrapara coal block," CBI had said in its charge sheet.

While taking cognisance of the charge sheet, the court had discharged another director of the firm, Ghanshyam Das Agarwal, who was also chargesheeted by CBI in the case, saying there was no sufficient incriminating evidence on record which could lead to his summoning as an accused in the matter.

( With inputs from ANI )