Three senior officials of Rathi Steel and Power ltd (RSPl) were handed down varying jail terms of up to three years on Wednesday in a corruption case related to allocation of Kesla North coal in Chhattisgarh.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar, who convicted the accused on Tuesday, sentenced Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Udit Rathi and Managing Director (MD) Pradeep Rathi to three years imprisonment while AGM Kushal Aggarwal was awarded two years in jail.
A fine of Rs 50 lakh each on RSPl and its CEO, Rs 25 lakh on the MD and Rs 5 lakh on the AGM was imposed by the court.
The court, while pronouncing the sentences, said “white collar crimes are more dangerous to society than ordinary offences”.
The RSPl and the three of its officials were held guilty on Tuesday with the court observing that they had “deceived” the Government by making false representation even before then PM Manmohan Singh.
The court had convicted them of offences, including cheating (Section 420) and criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B) of IPC.
This is the second conviction in the coal scam. In March, Jharkhand Ispat Private limited (JIPl) and its two directors were held guilty of criminal conspiracy and cheating in the allocation of the North Dhadu coal block in Jharkhand. In April they were sentenced with four-year jail term.
It had earlier framed charges against the firm and the officials for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy read with cheating under the IPC, observing that they had conspired and furnished wrong information to get coal block and misappropriated nationalised natural resources.
The three accused were earlier granted bail after they had appeared in court pursuant to summons.
The CBI had chargesheeted RSPl and Udit Rathi for the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating.
All the accused had denied the charges against them. The court, meanwhile, allowed the convicts’ plea to suspend their sentence for one month for filing the appeal in higher court and granted them bail on a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh each and a surety of like amount.
While issuing the release warrant, the court also granted them time till August 2 for depositing the fine.