Ranchi: A special CBI court on Friday sentenced four transporters to three years imprisonment under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) in a bitumen scam case.The judgment has come almost 29 years after the case was registered by the central agency.The special CBI judge, Yogesh Kumar, sentenced transporters Vinay Kumar Sinha, Ashish Maitey, Raj Kumar Roy and Ranjan Pradhan in the case.The CBI public prosecutor, Kushboo Kumari, produced 29 witnesses to establish her argument against the accused.In his order, the judge acquitted officers of road construction department, including the then executive engineer SK Das, assistant engineer SM Aurangzeb and junior engineer NC Prasad, for lack of evidence against them.There were nine accused in the case, but of them, Md Istiaq and BP Gupta passed away during the trial.The accused transporters had through three supply orders lifted bitumen totaling 1,000 metric tonne (MT) from Haldia in West Bengal, but supplied only 850 MT to the national highway Barhi during the period between 1992 and 1994.The value of misappropriated bitumen during that time was Rs 9 lakh.The judgment has come almost 29 years after the case was registered by the central agency.
