Coal scam: Delhi High Court grants interim bail to ex-MP Vijay Darda, his son and businessman Jayaswal

After spending two days in jail, ex-Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, his son Devender and businessman Manoj Kumar Jayaswal were granted interim bail by the Delhi High Court in a case related to irregularities in coal block allocation in Chhattisgarh.

Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seeking its response to the appeals filed by the three men challenging their conviction and four-year sentence in the case.

The High Court also asked the CBI to file its response to the convicts' pleas seeking suspension of their jail terms.

"Taking into account that the appellants were never arrested during the trial and they never misused the liberty of bail, they are granted interim bail on furnishing of a personal bond of Rs 10 lakh," Justice Sharma said.

The Dardas and Jayaswal were taken into custody on July 26, immediately after the trial court passed the sentencing order.

The CBI counsel opposed the plea for suspension of the convicts' jail term and said the agency will file a detailed reply.

The High Court listed the matter for September 26 for hearing arguments on pleas seeking suspension of sentence.

While sentencing the three convicts, the trial court had said that they obtained the coal block by cheating the Government of India.

The trial court had also convicted and awarded three-year jail terms to ex-coal secretary H C Gupta and two former senior public servants K S Kropha and K C Samria in the case.

They were, however, granted bail by the trial court to enable them to challenge their conviction and punishment before the High Court.

The trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on JLD Yavatmal Energy Private Limited, which was also convicted in the case.

It had imposed a fine of Rs 15 lakh each on the Dardas and Jayaswal. The other three convicts were directed to pay a fine of Rs 20,000 each.

During the hearing in the High Court, senior advocate Kirti Uppal, appearing for Vijay Darda, sought suspension of his sentence on medical grounds and said that the 73-year-old is suffering from cardiac ailments. He said the trial court itself had taken into consideration the fact that there was no wrongful loss to the exchequer and no wrongful gain to the accused persons.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, representing Devender Darda and Jayaswal, argued that the public servants were supposed to be the main accused and they have been sentenced to three-year imprisonment and shockingly, the private persons have been sentenced to jail for four years.

He argued that the accused persons were never arrested and were on bail during the trial and have never misused the liberty of bail.

Aggarwal apprised the High Court that the fine imposed by the trial court has already been deposited by the three convicts.

Senior advocate R S Cheema and lawyer Tarannum Cheema, representing the CBI, said these cases are part of the coal scam in which proceedings were initiated and monitored by the Supreme Court.

The counsel contended that the trial court has given a reasoned judgement and sought time to file a detailed reply on behalf of the CBI.

While granting interim bail to the Dardas and Jayaswal, the high court directed them not to leave the country without the trial court's prior permission and to make themselves available whenever required.

In its verdict, the trial court had said, "The present case relates to allocation of a coal block. The convicts had obtained the said block by committing cheating with the Government of India. Prosecution is justified in saying that the loss to the nation was huge."

In the 13th conviction in the coal scam, which rocked the erstwhile Manmohan Singh government, the trial court had on July 13 held the seven accused guilty under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The trial court had on November 20, 2014 refused to accept a closure report submitted by the CBI in the case and directed the agency to investigate it afresh, stating that Vijay Darda had "misrepresented" facts in his letters to the then prime minister Manmohan Singh, who held the coal portfolio.

Vijay Darda, the chairperson of the Lokmat Group, had done so to secure the Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh for JLD Yavatmal Energy Private Limited, it had said.

The offence of cheating was committed by private parties in furtherance of a conspiracy hatched between them and public servants, it had said.

The Lokmat Group is a multi-platform media company based in Maharashtra.

JLD Yavatmal Energy Private Limited was allotted the Fatehpur (East) coal block by the 35th Screening Committee.

The CBI had alleged in its FIR that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies between 1999 and 2005. However, in a closure report filed later, it said no undue benefit was extended to JLD Yavatmal by the coal ministry in the allocation of coal blocks.

The scam had rocked the Manmohan Singh government in 2012 after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) panned the government for inefficient allocation of 194 coal blocks to public sector enterprises and private companies between 2004 and 2009 for captive use in a non-transparent way.

The CAG had said instead of allocating the valuable natural resource, the government should have gone for competitive bidding.

Many politicians were claimed to have lobbied for private entities and helped them secure these blocks. Several entities got more blocks for mining than they needed and sold the excess coal in the open market, resulting in a huge windfall.

The CAG initially estimated that the coal scam caused a massive loss of Rs 10.6 lakh crore to the exchequer, but its final report tabled in Parliament put the figure at Rs 1.86 lakh crore.