Coal case: Court pulls up CBI for its 'piece meal' report

A special court today pulled up CBI for filing in "piecemeal" the report on its probe in a coal scam case involving Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal, ex-Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and others, saying the delay was affecting the progress of trial.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar directed the CBI's investigating officer (IO) to give a written communication to the director of Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) "to expedite the report as the trial in the case was getting held up".
"IO has filed progress report of further probe done after September 2 in the case and has also submitted a list of supplementary witnesses and documents with it. IO has been told that the report of further investigation cannot be filed in piecemeal," the court said.

The court returned to CBI the list of supplementary witnesses and documents and asked it to file them along with the final progress report. It fixed the matter for November 16 for for further hearing and filing of this report.
During the hearing, CBI official said that though further investigation in the case was almost complete, hard disk and some documents were sent to FSL but the report was awaited. He also said he had asked FSL officials to expedite the report.
Earlier, the court had directed CBI to verify the death of Radha Krishna Saraf, an accused and former Director of Gagan Sponge Iron Private Ltd (GSIPL), after it was informed that he had recently died of a heart attack here.

It had also asked CBI to file a report on its further probe in the case.

On September 2, the CBI had filed a report in a sealed cover which included statements of certain persons recorded during the course of further investigation.
The court had earlier allowed CBI's plea that they needed to probe the case further in light of certain disclosures made by a chartered accountant, Suresh Singhal, who had sought the court's nod to turn approver.
It had also allowed Singhal's plea for pardon and ordered deletion of his name from the list of accused.
CBI has alleged that ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, also accused in the case, had favoured Jindal group firms -- Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Gagan Sponge Iron Private Ltd (GSIPL) -- in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand.

Opposing CBI's contention, all the accused had said there was no evidence to show that they were in any conspiracy during the coal block allocation process. They had also denied the allegations levelled against them by CBI in its charge sheet.