Special CBI court frames charges against former minister Dilip Ray

NEW DELHI: A special CBI Court today framed charges against Dilip Ray, the then Union Minister of State for Coal in the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA), for his alleged involvement in the coal block allocation case. Ray was then a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999.

The Court also framed charges against four co-accused in the case. The five, including Ray, have been charged with cheating, criminal conspiracy and corruption charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The case pertains to the alleged irregularities in allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridh in Jharkhand to Castron Technologies in 1999.

Framing charges today, the CBI Judge held that the five "entered into a criminal conspiracy" to procure allocation of Brahmadiha coal in favour of Castron Technologies by adopting various "illegal means by making false claims about the proposed end use projects in different applications".

And that, order passed today reads, "by various acts of omission and commission amounting to criminal misconduct/cheating and criminal breach of trust by public servant by all the accused persons committed the offence of criminal conspiracy and within my cognizance".

Passing the order, special CBI Judge Bharat Prashar has put all the five accused to trial. Those charged, besides Ray, are Castron Technologies, its director MK Agarwalla; Pradip Kumar Banerjee, the then additional secretary and Nitya Nand Gautam.