Almost four years after the coal scam was unearthed by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, the first convictions were handed out to two of the accused on Monday.

A special court dealing with the coal scam-related cases convicted Jharkhand Ispat Private Ltd’s (JIPL) directors RC Rungta and RS Rungta for cheating and criminal conspiracy.

Irregularities in allocation The case pertains to irregularities in the allocation of the North Dhadu coal block to JIPL and three other companies — Electro Steel Casting Ltd, Adhunik Alloys and Power Ltd and Pawanjay Steel and Power Ltd.

“…it is crystal clear that the accused persons fraudulently with dishonest intention deceived the Screening Committee, Ministry for Coal and thereby the Government of India on the basis of these false representation qua the issue of land and as regard the installed/projected capacity of their end use project so as to procure the allotment of a coal block in favour of JIPL,” said Special CBI Judge Justice Bharat Parashar.

The judgment added that the ‘false representation’ by Rungtas “continued to hold ground even when the file containing the recommendation of (the) Screening Committee went to Minister in Charge, Coal, Government of India for final approval and thus it was primarily the Government which was deceived into making allotment of a coal block in favour of JIPL while believing all such representations to be true, which in fact they were not.”

The CAG in 2012 pointed to a possible monetary loss of about ₹1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer due to the defective allocation process by the screening committees. Besides this case, 19 others being investigated by the CBI are pending before the court. Two other cases probed by the Enforcement Directorate are also pending before the court.

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