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A special CBI court on Wednesday acquitted six accused, including former coal secretary H C Gupta and two other public servants in an alleged coal scam case related to allocation of two coal blocs in Odisha.
Besides Gupta, special judge Sanjay Bansal acquitted Navabharat Power Pvt. Ltd., its then chairman P Trivikrama Prasad and then managing director Y Harish Chandra Prasad, and former joint secretary in coal ministry K S Kropha, and K C Samaria, former director in coal allocation section of the ministry.
The judge held the CBI had failed to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that any "misrepresentation" was made by the accused.
The judge further said no case of cheating was made out as no one was induced.
"When the application has been found to be complete, when the applicant company NPPL has been found to be eligible company and when no misrepresentations were made by the company, no question arises for existence of any conspiracy. It is held that prosecution has failed to prove any conspiracy," the judge said.
The court said the charge of criminal breach of trust was defined under Section 405 of IPC against the public servants "cannot be said to have been made out".
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"All the accused are hereby acquitted of all the charges," the verdict held.
According to the CBI, the company, Y Harish Chandra Prasad and P Trivikrama Prasad hatched a criminal conspiracy in 2006-08 with Gupta, Kropha and Samaria, and cheated Ministry of Coal, Government of India, by making a false claim over the land and company's net worth in the application and feedback forms, and induced the ministry to allocate the coal block in favour of the company.
The central probe agency said the company made fraudulent misrepresentations through Y Harish Chandra Prasad which, as per the authorisation of chairman P Trivikrama Prasad, regarding its net worth and the land for the allocation of coal blocks Rampia and Dipside of Rampia in Odisha. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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