MLA’s son booked in Jamnagar coal scam


Jamnagar, 7 May 2013

Special Operation Groun (Jamnagar) has booked Congress MLA Raghavjibhai Patel’s son Jayendra Patel in Rs. 76 lakh coal scam.

The scam was operating using following method:

-Arrival of imported coal at Jamnagar district’s Bedi port for major industrial units of Jamnagar.
-A trucks would load imported coal(Rs. 6,000 per tonne value)
-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 Jamnagar based industrial house would go to industrial units in Morbi.
-Substandard coal would go to industrial house in Jamnagar that had actually ordered imported coal via Bedi port.
-The scam came to light when Jamnagar SOG Police Inspector Hadia received details of the scam. He later seized two trucks with same number plates: GJ10X5161.
-12 trucks and 60 tonne coal(in four trucks) worth Rs. 1.22 crore seized by Special Operation Group(SOG) Jamnagar police. Value of seized coal is Rs. 2 lakh.
-Value of scam per truck, per round was Rs. 75,000.
-10 trucks seized are: GJ10Z8012, GJ10TT4278, GJ10V6272, GJ10W7659, GJ3AT2551. Why only five number plates? Well because two trucks shared same number plate.

7 persons are arrested so far in this case. Complaint has been registered against 35 persons in this case. It includes owners of Shivkrupa and Karnikrupa transport, 16 drivers of 16 trucks and four persons of Morbi based Satish who was purchasing imported coal.

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

Ideally Essar company should file complaint in this case, but it has failed to do so. The complainant in this case therefore is SOG itself.

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, but cheaters have managed to cheat even in handling of coal.