Ex-NDA Minister Dilip Ray found guilty in coal scam case

New Delhi, Oct 6 (IANS) A Delhi court on Tuesday convicted a former union minister of the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, Dilip Ray, in a coal block allocation case.Special Judge Bharat Parashar of Rouse Avenue Court found Ray, Minister of State (MoS) for Coal during Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, guilty of criminal conspiracy in a case related to irregularities in allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Jharkhand in allocation to Castron Technologies Limited in 1999.Besides Ray, two former senior officials of the Ministry of Coal -- Pradip Kumar Banerjee, the then Additional Secretary and Nitya Nand Gautam, former advisor (Projects), Castron Technologies Limited, its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining Limited have also been found guilty.The arguments on quantum of sentence to the convicts will be heard by the court on October 14.
--IANS aka/in