Former Union Minister Dilip Ray was on Monday sentenced to three year imprisonment for his involvement in the alleged irregularities in the allocation of Jharkhand coal block in 1999. Ray was minister of state (coal) in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He was found guilty by a special CBI court, which also sentenced today three years imprisonment to two others who were recently convicted in the same case.
Earlier this month, the special court convicted the former union minister for his role in a coal scam case. Special Judge Bharat Parashar convicted Ray for criminal conspiracy and other offences. It also convicted two senior officials of the Ministry of Coal at that time, Pradip Kumar Banerjee and Nitya Nand Gautam, Castron Technologies Ltd, its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Ltd.
These were convicted in the case pertaining to allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to CTL in 1999.