Indian court sentences 4 to 3 yrs in jail in multi-bln USD coal scam case

NEW DELHI, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- A special court in the Indian capital Saturday sentenced four people, including a former chief minister of Jharkhand state, to three years imprisonment in the 2012 multi-billion-U.S. dollar coal scam case.

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, two retired bureaucrats - including former Coal Secretary H.C. Gupta - and another serving civil servant were convicted of criminal conspiracy in the case by special court judge Bharat Parashar Wednesday.

"After two days of arguments, the four convicts were sentenced to three years in jail. But they have not been taken into custody as the court has granted statutory bail for two months to enable them to challenge their conviction in the Delhi High Court," a lawyer said.

This is one of the several cases in the coal mining scandal that rocked the country in 2012 after government auditors pointed out that India had lost 33 billion U.S. dollars as coalfield rights were sold off cheaply, mostly to private firms, between 2004 and 2010.

In this case, the country's premier probe agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, had claimed in its charge sheet that the accused colluded to give mining rights of a state-owned coal block in Rajhara North to a private firm in 2007 and that was illegal.

Gupta, who was then the chairman of a screening committee, had concealed facts from then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had also been heading the Coal Ministry at the time, the probe agency said in its charge sheet.

The court had earlier rejected a plea of Koda to include Singh as an accused in the case.

In September 2014, India's Supreme Court cancelled almost all of the more than 200 coal mining licences awarded by the country's government since 1993, saying that they were illegal. Singh's Congress party was in charge when most of the licences were allocated.

India is one of the largest producers of coal in the world. Enditem