New Delhi, Apr 25 (PTI) A special court on Monday awarded four-year jail terms to two directors of Adhunik Corporation Ltd for cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy in a case related to the alleged irregularities in the allocation of the Patrapara coal block in Odisha to the firm.

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj sent Nirmal Kumar Agarwal, 60, and Mahesh Kumar Agarwal, 56, to jail for hatching a criminal conspiracy (punishable under section 120-B of IPC) to cheat the Union Ministry of Coal (MoC), for allocation of a coal block in their favour.

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The court also imposed a fine of Rs 30 lakh each on the company as well as on the convicted directors.

The judge said that the circumstantial evidence in this case unerringly pointed to the conspiracy amongst the accused and there was no other inference except the inference of a criminal conspiracy to secure allocation of a coal block by cheating MoS, Screening Committee, and MoC, Government of India.

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The judge had also convicted the accused of cheating (420 of IPC) Ministry of Steel (MoS), Screening Committee and Ministry of Coal (MoC), Government of India for allocation of coal block.

The court had further held that the accused knowingly used forged documents as genuine (section 471 of IPC).

According to the CBI's counsel V K Sharma, the 30th Screening Committee had recommended Adhunik Corporation Ltd for part allocation of the Patrapara coal block.

“During the course of the investigation, it was found that Adhunik Corporation Ltd had misrepresented on various aspects both to the ministry of steel and thereby to the ministry of coal with a view to cheat them so as to procure allocation of Patrapara coal block," CBI had said in its charge sheet.

While taking cognisance of the charge sheet, the court had discharged another director of the firm, Ghanshyam Das Agarwal, who was also charge -sheeted by CBI in the case, saying there was no sufficient incriminating evidence on record which could lead to his summoning as an accused in the matter. PTI UK

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)