NEW DELHI, May 22 - Former Coal Secretary HC Gupta and two serving senior officials were today sentenced to two-year imprisonment by a special court for irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Madhya Pradesh to a private firm.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 crore on Madhya Pradesh-based Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL), which was the beneficiary of the allocation of Thesgora-B/Rudrapuri coal block in the state.
Its managing director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia was awarded three-year jail term by the court for misrepresenting facts in its application before the Ministry of Coal (MOC), which was then headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Besides Gupta, who was the Coal Secretary from December 31, 2005 to November 2008, then joint secretary KS Kropha and then director KC Samaria in the MOC were handed down the punishment for cheating, criminal conspiracy and corruption.
They became the first public servants to be convicted and sentenced for the coal block allocation scam, unearthed during the previous UPA regime.
Besides the jail term, Special CBI Judge Bharat Parasher also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the three bureaucrats in the case. Ahluwalia, KSSPL managing director, who has been sentenced to a three-year jail term, has also been directed to pay a fine of Rs 30 lakh. � PTI