A special CBI court in Delhi has sentenced industrialist Manoj Kumar Jayaswal to three years of rigorous imprisonment in connection with irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Jharkhand. The court also imposed a fine of ₹1 crore on JAS Infrastructure & Capital Pvt Ltd, where Jayaswal served as managing director.
The case pertains to the allocation of the Mahuagarhi coal block in Jharkhand. The court found that JAS Infrastructure & Capital Pvt Ltd, obtained the coal block by deceiving the government of India. Special Judge Sanjay Bansal stated that the company and Jayaswal committed fraud against the Indian government to acquire the Mahuagarhi coal block. The CBI's assessment pointed to a significant national loss because of these offenses.
Jayaswal has been sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹5 lakh for offenses punishable under Sections 120-B/420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He received an additional three-year sentence and a ₹5 lakh fine for the substantive offense punishable under Section 420 of the IPC. The sentences will run concurrently. The company, JAS Infrastructure & Capital Pvt Ltd, was also fined ₹50 lakh each for criminal conspiracy to commit cheating and for the act of cheating itself.
Following the sentencing, Jayaswal filed an application seeking suspension of the sentence to allow him to file an appeal in the Delhi High Court. The trial court granted interim relief by staying his sentence for 60 days, subject to a personal bond of ₹1 lakh. The court has barred him from traveling abroad without special permission from the High Court.
The CBI had initially filed its closure report in the matter on November 20, 2014. The agency stated that the promoters of JAS Infrastructure had made "false and misleading claims" about the company's financial net worth, which became the basis of the allocation. During the trial, 18 prosecution witnesses were examined. This case marks the 19th conviction out of the 54 coal block allocation cases investigated by the CBI.
In contrast, earlier in June 2025, 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 evidence of personal wrongdoing on their part, noting that the recommendation to allocate the Mahuagarhi block to JAS Infrastructure was a collective decision of the screening committee. The committee included representatives from the Ministry of Power and the state governments of Jharkhand and West Bengal. The court clarified that government officers cannot be penalized for collective decision making.
The coal scam, also known as the Coalgate scandal, erupted in 2012 after the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) reported that the government had allocated coal blocks to private companies without transparent auctions. The report estimated a notional loss of ₹1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer.
