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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday told a special court it had enough evidence to “take cognisance of various offences” against Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh and others in the alleged coal scam case. The agency had a few months earlier filed a closure report in the case, after which the court had come down heavily on it for its hastiness.
“(The) special public prosecutor states that from the overall facts and circumstances, there is prima facie enough material on record to take cognisance of various offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and Indian Penal Code against the private parties and some of the public servants involved in the process of allocation of impugned coal block(s),” judge Bharat Parashar said on Monday.
Aditya Birla Group declined to comment on the issue. “As the matter is sub judice, it is inappropriate for us to comment,” said a spokesperson for the group.
Parakh said: “I have not read the arguments that the public prosecutor has filed in the court. It is difficult for me to comment, especially as CBI says there is not enough evidence but the special prosecutor says he has found some. It is for the court to review.”
CBI also submitted “a compilation of relevant documents” for a ready reference of the court, which will next hear the matter on November 25.
R S Cheema, the Supreme Court-appointed special public prosecutor, told the court that CBI could take cognisance on the revised closure report filed on October 21 by it.
CBI officials, however, said the agency had found no fresh evidence in this case and it would wait for further orders from the court. “CBI had filed a closure report in this case as the evidence collected during its investigation did not make out a prosecutable case. Cheema said in the court that there was prima facie evidence against the accused. We will wait for further court orders in the matter,” said CBI’s press information officer, R K Gaur.
The case relates to the allocation of Talabira-II and -III coal blocks jointly to Hindalco Industries (an Aditya Birla Group company) and with two other firms in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district in 2005. CBI had booked Birla (then non-executive chairman of Hindalco), Parakh (then coal secretary) and other Hindalco officials under various sections, including criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct on the part of government officials.
On September 12, the CBI court had questioned the agency for closing the case against Birla, Parakh and others. Judge Parashar had said: “What was the hurry to close this case?” The court’s observation had come after the investigating CBI officer was unable to produce the original minutes of the screening committee meeting where Hindalco had been awarded coal blocks. The officer had said the files “were missing”.
The judge had countered this and said there was no statement from anyone showing the original minutes were missing. “On what basis have you drawn such a conclusion (to close the case)? What kind of investigation have you done? What was the supervisory officer doing? Bring the police file and call your supervisory officer in the court now,” the judge had said.
CBI had then sought time to respond to the observations, and filed a “detailed and comprehensive” revised closure report on October 21.
The first information report against Birla, Parakh and others had been registered last year and CBI had alleged Parakh had shown “undue favours” to Hindalco by reversing within months his decision to reject the coal block allocation to the firm “without any valid basis or change in circumstances”.
| DARK PATCHES |
2005
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