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A CBI court on Saturday convicted former Bihar minister Mohammad Ilyas Hussain and four others in the 27-year-old bitumen transportation scam. Officials said the court sentenced the former minister, his then secretary Shahabuddin Beg and three others, Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Ashok Kumar Agarwal and Vinay Kumar Sinha, to three years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 32 lakh on each of them.
Officials said the case pertains to the alleged transportation of bitumen from Haldia to RCD Hazaribagh via Barauni. An official said the investigation revealed that the bitumen was not transported. The transporter loaded the bitumen from Haldia and sold it in the open market of Kolkata and also charged transportation charges. Officials said the CBI had registered an FIR in the case in 1997 and filed a chargesheet in 2001.
Seven accused were acquitted
Facing trial in the case, seven accused were acquitted due to lack of evidence. The court acquitted Kedar Paswan, Ganpati Ramnath, Sheetal Prasad Mathur, Tarun Kumar Ganguly, Ranjan Pradhan, Shobha Sinha and Mahesh Chandra Agarwal. The court had recorded the statements of 12 accused on January 24. The date of judgment was fixed after the final arguments of both the sides were completed on March 22. Let us tell you that an FIR was registered in this case in 1997.
Loss of crores to the government
In 1994, road construction work was to be done in Hazaribagh division of Path Nirman Vibhag. For this, tar was to come from Haldia Oil Refinery Kolkata. But the engineers along with the minister connived with the company and cheated the government of crores. The investigation of the scam was handed over to the CBI in the year 1997.
FIR registered in 1997
The CBI had registered an FIR in this case on May 7, 1997. The CBI had started the investigation by registering seven separate FIRs regarding the tar scam at that time. The CBI’s investigation found evidence of defrauding the government. On this basis, the CBI filed a chargesheet against more than three dozen public servants and private individuals, including Bihar’s then road construction minister Ilyas Hussain.
