Coal block scam: Court to pronounce order in July

Team Udayavani, Jun 12, 2017, 4:03 PM IST

A special court has reserved for next month its order on framing charges against a private firm and three persons in a coal block scam case relating to alleged irregularities in allocation of Jharkhand-based North Dhadhu coal block.

Special Judge Bharat Parashar fixed July 31 for order on whether to put the accused — M/s Pawanjay Steel and Power Limited (PSPL), its two directors Gyanchand Prasad Agarwal and Umesh Prasad Agarwal and S K Kanungo, Chief Manager(Marketing) of M/s Hari Machines Ltd (HML) — on trial after arguments on the point of charge was concluded.

The court had on September 28 last year summoned them for the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating, saying “prima facie there were sufficient incriminating evidence on record” against them. The court later granted bail to all the accused persons after they appeared before it on November 9 in pursuance to the summons.

The CBI had registered the case under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act against PSPL, its officials, Kanungo and other unknown persons, including public servants. However, the CBI said that charge sheet against some other officials and public servants could not be filed as sufficient evidence could not be brought on record. It added that it may file supplementary charge sheet in the case.

The charge sheet said, “PSPL and its two directors along with Kanungo, hatched a criminal conspiracy with a view to deceive Ministry of Coal (MoC) so as to induce it to allocate a captive coal block in favour of the accused firm”.

“During the processing of their application, they also furnished wrong information supported with false documents to Ministry of Steel (MoS) so as to deceive them and thereby inducing them to make a recommendation in favour of PSPL to MoC for allotment of a coal block,” the charge sheet said. It alleged that PSPL had also submitted wrong information about the land actually acquired by them at the proposed project site in Jharkhand.

“It was also found that the accused had furnished false information to the Government of Jharkhand also so as to deceive them and thereby inducing them to make recommendation in favour of PSPL to MoC for allotment of a captive coal block,” it said