Industrialist Naveen Jindal and four other officials of his company allegedly made incorrect claims before the Screening Committee for allocation of a coal block, a Delhi Court said Monday while ordering framing of charges against them to face the trial.
Special judge Bharat Parashar ordered framing of charges under sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code against Jindal, Jindal Steel and Power Limited's former director Sushil Maroo, former deputy managing director Anand Goyal, chief executive officer Vikrant Gujral and the company's authorised signatory D N Abrol.
"A bare perusal of the submissions of defence counsels however clearly shows that we have a case where certain claims were indeed made by the company in the feedback form i.e. qua land or the orders placed qua purchase of equipments and which facts during the course of investigation were actually not found correct," the judge said.
The court said only after evidence is led by both the parties (prosecution and accused persons) during the course of trial that it will be in a position to draw any inference on the actual intention of the accused persons.
"In view of discussion and overall facts and circumstances of the case, I am of the considered opinion that prima facie it is a case where an order under section 228 CrPC framing charge against the accused persons for the offence u/s 120-B/420 IPC and also for the substantive offences thereof ought to be passed and not a case which warrants an order under section 227 CrPC discharging the accused persons," the judge said.
It was hearing a matter pertaining to the allocation of the Urtan North coal block in Madhya Pradesh.
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The court has now put up the matter for July 25 for formally framing the charges against the accused.
It said that certain claims were made by the company in the feedback form with regard to land or the orders placed "qua purchase of equipments" and which facts during the course of investigation were actually not found correct.
"Since the feedback form also talks of remaining land to be under acquisition so the accused persons will certainly get the opportunity to explain as to under what circumstances they preferred to mention some land as having been already acquired, even though the same was still not acquired or as to why some land was still stated to be under acquisition. Similar is the position with respect to claim made as regard the orders placed for procuring equipments," the court said.
On the issue of submitting separate applications by different companies with respect to each end use project, the court said that in terms of the guidelines issued by Ministry of Coal governing allocation of captive coal blocks, a separate application was to be submitted.
"Thus, the company A-1 M/s JSPL was not only required to submit a separate application for each of the three coal blocks but also separate applications for each of the three end use projects. No such combined application for more than one end use project was permissible in terms of the guidelines issued by MOC," it said.
"While this aspect ought to have been looked into by the MOC officers but they certainly overlooked the same. However, since none of the officers of MOC are facing trial in the present case so I am not harping upon the said issue any further except reiterating that filing of separate applications for each of the end use project(s) would have required submission of separate demand drafts of Rs 10,000 alongwith each of the application(s).
It said that "Since no investigation seems to have been carried out on this aspect and moreover keeping in view the fact that charge for the substantive offences i.e. u/s 120-B/420 IPC is being framed against all the accused persons so no formal charge on account of aforesaid aspect is being framed in the present case," the court said.
Jindal is named as accused, along with former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, in another case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand.
According to the CBI charge sheet in this case, the accused had misrepresented facts in its January 2007 application before the Screening Committee, responsible for recommending coal block allocation, for obtaining the Madhya Pradesh coal block and hence cheated the Coal Ministry to get wrongful gains.
The ministry had issued the allocation letter to the firm in October 2009.
The probe agency has named 64 persons as prosecution witnesses to prove its case besides annexing 60 documents in its charge sheet.
The charge sheet has said that in the feedback form, the firm misrepresented or made false claims on two counts -- that it had already acquired 964 acres of land for its Jharkhand-based Patratu project and that it had placed orders for equipment for its Orissa-based Angul project for Rs 4,340 crore.
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