Jamnagar: Congress MLA’s son arrested in coal scam

Jamnagar, 23 September 2013

The Special Operation Group of Jamnagar police has arrested Congress MLA Raghavjibhai Patel’s son Jayendra Patel and three others in Rs. 76 lakh coal scam. Jamnagar Seasons Court had issued arrest warrant against 18 accused including Jayendra in imported coal scam case. Jayendra was earlier called to police station and questioned too, but was not arrested. Jayendra later filed anticipatory bail plea which was rejected by court.

The scam was operating using following method:

-Coal import at Bedi port for Essar.
-Loading of imported coal(Rs. 6,000 per tonne value) in truck.
-Another truck with same number plate would load substandard coal from NRE Coke at Khambhalia(Rs. 1,000 per tonne value)
-Imported coal ordered by Essar would go to industrial units in Morbi.
-Substandard coal loaded at NRE Coke would go to Essar against actual order of imported coal via Bedi port.

The scam came to light when Jamnagar SOG Police Inspector Hadia received details about it and seized two trucks with same RTO number: GJ10X5161. 12 trucks and 60 tonne coal(in four trucks) worth Rs. 1.22 crore were seized by Special Operation Group(SOG) Jamnagar police initially. Value of seized coal was Rs. 2 lakh. The figure of scam per truck, per trip was estimated at Rs. 75,000.

Initially 7 persons were arrested in this case. Complaint was registered against 35 persons including owners of Shivkrupa and Karnikrupa transport, 16 drivers and four persons working for Morbi based Mr. Satish who was purchasing imported coal.

As per an estimate, total 1900 tonne coal worth Rs. 76 lakh was exchanged between trucks during 9 June and 24 July.

Ideally Essar company could have filed the complaint in this case, but as the company failed to do so, the Special Operation Grop of Police filed complaint.

It should be mentioned here that once upon a time, Jamnagar’s Bedi port was handling all kinds of goods, but due to series of incidents of cheating and theft, number of traders stopped using this port. Lastly only coal import was taking place.