New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS) A CBI court in Delhi has convicted and sentenced a private company, M/s SKS Ispat & Power Ltd, its director Deepak Gupta, and two authorised signatories in a coal block allocation scam case, an official statement said on Tuesday.

This marks the 20th conviction in coal block allocation cases investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The verdict was delivered on Monday, January 12, the statement added.

The court sentenced Deepak Gupta, Director of M/s SKS Ispat & Power Ltd, to three years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) along with a fine of Rs 10 lakh.

Satya Narain Dwivedi, an authorised signatory of the company, was awarded two years of RI and fined Rs 20,000, while Amrit Singh, another authorised signatory, was sentenced to one year of RI with a fine of Rs 10,000.

In addition, the court imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on the accused company, M/s SKS Ispat & Power Ltd.

The CBI said it had registered the case on August 4, 2014, alleging that the accused company and its officials had made false and misleading claims in their application and feedback forms related to financial net worth, production capacity, land ownership, and environmental clearances to wrongfully secure the Rawanwara North Coal Block.

According to CBI, after a year of investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet on August 31, 2016, against M/s SKS Ispat Ltd (now M/s SKS Ispat & Power Ltd) through its director and authorised signatories.

After completion of the trial, the court convicted and sentenced all the accused accordingly.

The CBI actively investigates fraud cases, leading to convictions of public servants and private individuals with punishment including imprisonment and hefty fines.

–IANS

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