DILIP RAY FORMER UNION MINISTER SENTENCED THREE YEARS IMPRISONMENT IN A COAL SCAM

Rajesh Mohapatra,Odishabarta

ROURKELA: Dilip Ray the former Union minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee Govt.  today is sentenced three years jail imprisonment in a coal scam case  relating irregularities in allocation of a Jharkhand coal block in 1999. Dilip Ray was a Union minister when BJD was an ally with NDA. He was then a Rajya Sabha member. He was a very powerful politician from BJD because he was a founder member of BJD and very closely associated with the top most leaders from BJD. In 2002 he was expelled from BJD when he defied party’s dictate and contested the upper house independently.

 Two other officials who were also involved in this irregularities been sentenced to three years imprisonment. He joined BJP in the year 2009 and went to elect in the assembly election form Rourkela constituency and defeated Sarada Nayak, BJd candidate but due to some misunderstanding with the party he resigned from BJP in the year 2018 after a long suspense. He was very closely associated with late Biju Patnaik, the father of current CM of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik. He was a very powerful political person in Odisha and known for his wide contacts with all leaders of different political parties. He is also a successful hotelier and gained much reputation in service industries.

This case kick started long back in the year 1999 when Supreme Court had directed on irregularities in the coal scam case and then CBI had filed an FIR against Dilip Ray in 2012 and since then investigation was going on and on April,2017 charges were framed against him as per the agency reports.