Today, the Delhi High Court granted interim bail to former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Vijay Darda, his son Devender Darda and director of JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd Manoj Kumar Jayaswal in case related to irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh.

The bench headed by Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma heard the matter and granted them interim bail subject to furnishing bail bond of ₹10 lakh each and two sureties of the same amount.

Yesterday, the Court sentenced them ti 4 yrs of rigorous imprisonment 

Former Secretary of the Ministry of Coal, HC Gupta as well as bureaucrats KC Kropha and KC Samria were also convicted in the case and ordered to undergo three years of imprisonment.

The duo filed an appeal challenging the previos order and sought suspension of sentence stating that the trial court judgement is replete with contradictions and they were never arrested in the case.

The Bench also issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ordered them to file their response to the plea within eight weeks.

Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal and Advocate Vijay Aggarwal appeared for Vijay Darda, Devendra Darda and Manoj Kumar Jayaswal.

CBI was represented through Senior Advocate RS Cheema.

The trial court had held all the accused guilty of offences under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

This was the thirteenth conviction in the coal scam case.  

In its order convicting the accused, the trial court said that private parties had committed the offence of cheating and there was active connivance with the officials of the MoC.

On the role of the public servants, the court said that they must be liable for their actions and even though the guidelines issued by the MoC to govern the allocation of captive coal blocks may not be termed as law under Article 13 of the Constitution, they were binding upon the officers.

The court added that the allocation of a coal block to an ineligible company is against public interest and the actions of the three officers conclusively show that their efforts were to somehow recommend allocation of the coal block in favour of JLD.