Delhi High Court: The present application under Section 389(1) read with Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’) was filed by appellant seeking suspension of order of his conviction dated 6-10-2020, on the ground that appellant had to contest upcoming elections of Odisha Legislative Assembly, 2024. Swarana Kanta Sharma, J.*, opined that the conviction of appellant if not suspended would lead to an irreversible consequence if he was acquitted at a later stage. Thus, this Court allowed the present application and directed that the conviction of appellant dated 6-10-2020, shall stand stayed during the pendency of present appeal.
Background
The present case pertained to allocation of 105.153 hectares of non-nationalized, abandoned coal mining area in district Giridih, Jharkhand in favour of Castron Technologies Ltd. (‘CTL’) by 14th Screening Committee, Ministry of Coal, Government of India. It was submitted that after the allegations of corruption were leveled against certain public servants, an examination on the allocation of various coal blocks to private companies was started by the Central Vigilance Commission (‘CVC’). Thereafter, the CVC referred to CBI after finding enough material. The CBI had initially conducted certain preliminary enquiries, however, when sufficient incriminating material qua such allocation of coal blocks came on record during the course of enquiry warranting detailed investigation, then a number of regular cases were registered including the present case against companies CTL, CML, their directors and also against unknown public servants and private persons for the offences under Sections 120-B and 420 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), and Section 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (‘PC Act’).
Upon completion of investigation, the CBI had filed a final report under Section 173 of CrPC against six accused persons including appellant Dilip Ray, who was the then Minister of State for Coal, for the offences under Section 120-B and 420 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act. Appellant was convicted by the Trial Court vide order dated 6-10-2020 for offence punishable under Sections 120-B, 409, and 420 of IPC and Sections 13(1)(c) and 13(1)(d) of PC Act and was sentenced to undergo sentence of three years and payment of fine in case, arising out of FIR dated 7-1-2014, registered with CBI, New Delhi.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that in the present case, appellant was sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for three years by the Trial Court in 2020. In 2020 itself, after going through the record, this Court had suspended the sentence awarded to appellant after going through the entire record as mentioned in the order dated 27-10-2020 while admitting the appeal and issuing notice to respondents.
The Court opined that “appellant had a long political career. He remained the Union Minister on several occasions as well as the State Minister in the Odisha Government. He was 71 years old and wished to contest elections to be held in May 2024 and serve his constituency and the country. It was not as if he had expressed his desire to do so only for the purpose of suspension of his conviction by contesting the election for the first time. He had a political career running into more than 35 years. In the present case, multiple appeals and cross-appeals were filed which would take time to be heard and were not likely to be heard and decided in the nearest future”.
The Court relied on Afjal Ansari v. State of U.P., (2024) 2 SCC 187 and opined that in case, appellant’s prayer was not allowed, he would lose chance to contest election and an irreversible consequence and irreversible damage to his political career and desire to serve his constituency would be caused to him.
The Court opined that the conviction of appellant if not suspended would lead to an irreversible consequence if he was acquitted at a later stage. Thus, this Court allowed the present application and directed that the conviction of appellant recorded in judgment dated 6-10-2020, shall stand stayed during the pendency of present appeal.
[Dilip Ray v. CBI, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 2522, decided on 8-4-2024]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Appellant: Mukul Rohtagi, Pramod Kumar Dubey, Senior Advocates; Mahesh Agarwal, Ankur Saigal, Ankit Banati, Shravan Niranjan, Himanshu Bajaj, Gaurav Khanna, Keshav Sehgal, Anurag Andly, Satyam Sharma, Advocates
For the Respondent: R.S. Cheema, Senior Advocate, SPP; Tarannum Cheema, Akshay N., Akash Singh, Sadeev Kan, Pawan Kaushik, IO/DSP
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