Dilip Ray gets bail in coal block case, cries conspiracy

Former coal minister Dilip Ray was summoned in the coal block scam. He is the first Minister of NDA government to have been summoned in the coal block allocation case. 

NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: A special CBI court in New Delhi on Friday granted bail to former union minister of state (MoS) for Coal and Odisha BJP MLA Dilip Ray in connection with a coal block allocation case.

The special court had summoned Ray and five others to appear before it on Friday.

The BJP MLA from Rourkela appeared before the court this morning and moved his bail application which was granted by the court.

He is the first minister of the NDA government of 1999 to have been summoned as an accused in a coal scam case.
After getting bail in the coal block allocation case, Ray said a conspiracy is being hatched against him.

“I suspect a conspiracy against me in the entire episode. I will reveal everything about the conspirator at the right time,” said Ray.

He said that he had no role except referring an application of a former MP from Bihar to the screening committee of the coal ministry to re-examine allotment of a coal block.

All the union ministers used to give remarks on applications in the manner in which he did in the past, he said.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar had summoned these persons and two firms for the alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 409 (Criminal breach of trust) of IPC and under the relevant provisions of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

They were directed to appear before the court in a case about alleged irregularities in allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to Castron Technologies Ltd in 1999.

Notably, Dilip Ray was the then Union Minister of State for Coal during the NDA government in 1999.

The court summoned these accused after taking cognisance of CBI’s charge sheet filed against them in the multi-crore coal scam.