Moments after the three people, including former Union Minister Dilip Ray were convicted in the coal scam case and awarded a three-year jail term, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Monday (October 26) granted bail to all of them on a bond of Rs 1 lakh each. Ray was Minister of State (coal) in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

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The three were also given time till November 25 to appeal in the High Court.

Earlier today, the three were awarded three years in prison by the CBI court. They were convicted during the last hearing, but the verdict on the sentence was pronounced on Monday. In the previous hearing, the court had personally directed all the convicts to appear in the court.

Former Union Minister Dilip Ray was accused of corruption in the Brahmadiha coal mine allocation in Giridih, Jharkhand, in 1999. In this case, along with Dilip Ray, three other convicts have also been proved guilty. On October 6, the special CBI court had considered all the accused as convicted and postponed the verdict till further hearing.

The CBI had demanded life imprisonment sentencing to the accused, while the accused's counsel had requested to be lenient in the sentence citing no criminal record.

In this case, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda has been proved guilty. He was fined Rs 25 lakh with three years in jail. Similarly, former mining secretary HC Gupta was also jailed for three years and fined Rs 1 lakh.

The Court earlier said since it has now been concluded beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts that all the five accused persons conspired together so as to procure allocation of a captive coal block and finally achieved the said object of the criminal conspiracy by undertaking various acts of cheating and also the offence of criminal breach of trust by public servant, so the court accordingly holds them guilty.