A Delhi court sentenced ex-MD Manoj Jaiswal to three years in jail and fined JAS Infrastructure Rs. 1 crore for fraud in Jharkhand’s Mahuagarhi coal block allocation. Earlier, two senior bureaucrats were acquitted, with the court citing collective decision-making and lack of personal wrongdoing.
In a judgment related to the long-standing coal block allocation scam, a special CBI court in Delhi has sentenced a private company’s former managing director to three years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs. 1 crore on the firm. The verdict pertains to fraudulent practices during the allocation of the Mahuagarhi coal block in Jharkhand. The Rouse Avenue Court, presided over by Special Judge Sanjay Bansal, found that JAS Infrastructure & Power Ltd. (JICPL) had obtained the coal block through deceit, causing substantial financial loss to the Indian government. The court held that the company and its former MD, Manoj Kumar Jaiswal, were guilty of criminal conspiracy and cheating under IPC Sections 120-B and 420. As per the court’s ruling, Jaiswal was sentenced to 3 years of rigorous imprisonment. He was also fined a total of Rs. 10 lakh. The company JICPL was fined Rs. 1 crore, with Rs. 50 lakh each under two separate charges. The court remarked that the company had misled the Government with false claims in its application and failed to comply with basic eligibility norms.
Suspension of Sentence Granted Temporarily
Following the sentencing, Jaiswal moved the Delhi High Court, seeking suspension of his jail term. The trial court granted interim relief by staying his sentence for 60 days, subject to furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 1 lakh. However, it was also made clear that he would not be allowed to travel abroad during this period without special permission from the High Court.
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Former Bureaucrats Cleared of Charges Earlier
This recent sentencing comes in contrast to an earlier verdict in June 2025, where the same court acquitted two former senior coal ministry officials – H.C. Gupta (former Coal Secretary) and K.S. Kropha (former Joint Secretary) in connection with the same coal block case. The court found no personal wrongdoing on their part, stating that the recommendation to allocate the Mahuagarhi block to JAS Infrastructure was a collective decision of the screening committee, which included representatives from the Ministry of Power, and the state governments of Jharkhand and West Bengal. There was no evidence that the officials acted with dishonest intent or were involved in any illegal activity. Judge Bansal also clarified that Government officers cannot be held individually accountable for a group decision unless there is clear evidence of personal involvement in the wrongdoing. This verdict marked the third acquittal for the two former officers in a total of 19 coal scam-related cases.
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Background of The Coal Block Allocation
The Mahuagarhi coal block was allocated in 2008 during the controversial coal block allocation process which was later scrapped by the Supreme Court in 2014, calling the process “arbitrary.” JAS Infrastructure was one of the 15 applicants considered for the power sector. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) recommended a probe, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered cases against several companies and individuals, including bureaucrats and corporate executives. Interestingly, while the CBI alleged that applications were not properly verified, the court observed that the responsibility for verifying the technical and financial claims rested with the State Governments and the administrative ministry, not individual officers of the coal ministry. The ministry’s role was limited to checking whether applications were complete in form, not necessarily factually accurate.
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