New Delhi:
A special court today granted bail to former Coal secretary HC Gupta and Director of Pushp Steels and Mining Pvt Ltd (PSMPL) Atul Jain in a coal scam case pertaining to the alleged irregularities in allocation of a coal block in Madhya Pradesh.
Special Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI Judge Bharat Parashar asked HC Gupta and Mr Jain to cooperate with the probe while granting them bail on personal bond of Rs one lakh each and surety of a like amount.
"Accused HC Gupta and Atul Jain are granted bail. They will not tamper with evidence and will cooperate with the probe. Put up for further hearing on August 26," the judge said.
During the brief hearing, counsel for Mr Gupta and Mr Jain said that they have been cooperating with the investigation and were not arrested by the CBI, so bail be granted to them.
Counsel for Mr Jain said no criminal antecedents have been found against his client and the entire case is based on documents, so there is no question of tampering with evidence.
Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) said if the accused are granted bail, conditions should be imposed on them like not allowing them to leave the country without the permission of the court and they should not tamper with the evidence.
The court had on July 6 summoned Mr Gupta, PSMPL and Mr Jain, as accused for their alleged involvement in the allocation of Brahmapuri coal block in lawmaker to the company which resulted in
a loss to the government.
The court had noted that Mr Gupta, who was also the Chairman of Screening Committee, had prima facie facilitated allocation of the coal block to PSMPL "to the detriment of all other applicant companies."
"Not only loss was caused to other applicant companies but also to Government of India as valuable nationalized natural resources of the country i.e. coal stood allotted to a company by dubious means," it had said.