Bhubaneswar, Jan 18: BJP MLA from Rourkela, Dilip Ray, who was the Union Minister of State for Coal during the erstwhile NDA government in 1999, has been summoned as an accused in connection with coal block allocation.

A special court in Delhi issued the summons. An FIR was filed against Ray in January 2014. The court has asked Ray and 5 others to appear before it on February 26. In its order, the court said there were “prima facie” enough evidence to summon them as accused in the case.

Besides Ray, the court has also summoned Pradip Kumar Banerjee, who was the then Additional Secretary in Ministry of Coal (MoC), Nitya Nand Gautam, who was the then advisor (projects) in MOC, Castron Technologies Ltd, its director Mahendra Kumar Agarwalla and Castron Mining as accused in the case.

The development came as a huge setback for Ray, who is reportedly upset at the elevation of Basant Panda as the BJP’s Odisha Unit President. A section in the BJP led by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, are not at good terms with Ray and want him to be out of the party.