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According to Bar and Bench reports, Rouse Avenue Court Special Judge Dheeraj Mor ruled that no essential elements for criminal conspiracy, cheating or forgery had been established against Gupta and Krofa and two top officials of RKM Powergen Pvt Ltd.
This decision of the court came while hearing the case related to alleged irregularities in the allotment of Fatehpur East. coal block in chhattisgarh To RKM Powergen Pvt. Ltd.
“There is no material available on record to show that the act of the accused public servants (Krofa and Gupta) was without public interest,” Special Judge Dheeraj Mor said in an order dated October 31, as reported by the Indian Express.
The Bar said, “All the five accused persons, namely (i) M/s RKM Powergen Pvt. Ltd.; (ii) Smt. Dr. Andal Arumugam; (iii) Shri TM Singaravel; (iv) Shri Harish Chandra Gupta; and (v) Shri Kuljit Singh Krofa (accused nos. 1 to 5 respectively) deserve to be discharged for the respective offenses charged against them in the charge sheet. Accordingly, all of them are discharged. Is ordered.” More bench reports added.
Who is HC Gupta?
Gupta served as Coal Secretary between December 2005 and November 2008. A post-graduate in Mathematics and Physics, he is a 1971-batch officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre. He also served as the state Home Secretary soon after Mayawati became Chief Minister in 1995.
It is widely believed among many officers, especially within the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) fraternity, that former Coal Secretary Harish Chandra Gupta was wrongly implicated in cases related to the coal block allocation scam.
After his retirement as a secretary in the central government, he was convicted in 11 high-profile corruption cases and spent more than 10 years in jail.
But every top IAS officer who knows him guarantees his ‘honesty’ and ‘impeccable integrity’ to everyone. According to a report in The Print, Anil Swarup, the retired coal secretary who succeeded Gupta in the ministry, described this fate as a ‘Shakespearean tragedy’.
According to retired heavy industries secretary Rajan Katoch, Gupta had become a ‘decadent man’. “It is sad because the public perception of an officer who was known as honest throughout his career has been forever tarnished despite the court’s final verdict,” The Print quoted him as saying.
A retired 1982 batch UP cadre officer who worked with him said Gupta was known for his honesty.
“The CM had received several complaints of corruption about an officer who was also very powerful. The officers were wary of touching him or giving adverse comments on the file. The CM called Gupta, who had a reputation for being impartial and honest. After seeing the file of the officer concerned, Gupta told the CM that the complaints were genuine. Subsequently, action was taken against the officer and he was removed,” the retired officer was quoted as saying by the print.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed an FIR in 2014, saying the firm misrepresented its net worth to get the allotment and government officials broke guidelines to provide it with undue benefits.
It was mentioned that minimum net worth was required to fit the eligibility criteria for getting coal block allocation. 500 crores, while the net worth of RKM Powergen was only 21.51 crores.