Former trade union minister Dilip Ray was sentenced today to three years in prison for his role in alleged irregularities in the allocation of a block of coal from Jharkhand in 1999.
Besides Dilip Ray, the CBI Special Court also sentenced two people to three years in prison who were also recently convicted for their role in the case.
Dilip Ray, former minister of state (coal) in the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was convicted earlier this month of criminal conspiracy and other misdemeanors by a special Delhi court dealing with the case. Special judge Bharat Parashar then reserved the order for October 26 after hearing the arguments of the CBI as well as the convicts.
The CBI had requested life imprisonment for the former Union minister and others convicted in the case, including two senior officials of the then Coal Ministry, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, and the director of Castron Technologies Ltd (CTL) Mahendra Kumar. Agarwalla.
The CBI, represented by prosecutors V K Sharma and A P Singh, had told the court that white-collar crimes are on the rise and the maximum penalty is required to send a message to society.
The convicts had urged the court to be lenient given their old age and the fact that they had never been convicted before.
