A special court today reserved its judgement in a coal scam case in which Jharkhand Ispat Pvt Ltd (JIPL) and its two Directors are facing trial in a case pertaining to allotment of a Jharkhand coal block to the firm.
This is the first case in coal block allocation scam in which Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar, exclusively dealing with all the related matters, has reserved its verdict for March 21.
The case involves JIPL and its directors R S Rungta and R C Rungta who are accused of acquiring the coal block allegedly on the basis of false and forged documents.
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The court had on March 21 last year framed charges against them for the alleged offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using a forged document as genuine) of IPC.
All the accused had pleaded not guilty and claimed trial, while refuting the allegations levelled against them by CBI.
On December 23 last year, the court had dismissed R S Rungta's plea to summon former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ex-Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao as defence witnesses in the case.
The court had enlarged Rungtas on bail on January 14 last year on a personal bond of Rs one lakh each and with one surety of the like amount.
In its charge sheet, CBI had alleged that during the probe, it was found that JIPL had "grossly misrepresented" a number of aspects before Ministry of Steel (MoS) and Ministry of Coal (MoC) to inflate their claim and thereby induced the MoC officers and the screening committee to allocate the coal block to them.
CBI alleged that JIPL along with three other firms, M/s Electro Steel Casting Ltd, M/s Adhunik Alloys and Power Ltd and M/s Pawanjay Steel and Power Ltd, was jointly allocated North Dhadu coal block by 27th and 30th screening committee.
CBI had alleged that no efforts were made either by the screening committee to verify the claims made by the applicant firm and that MoS also did not develop any methodology for assessment of the applicant companies.
It had claimed that some records of MoC relating to the case was stated to be missing and a separate preliminary enquiry has been registered by CBI.
CBI had said that no involvement of any of the public servants was found in the entire process during its probe.
The court had summoned the accused on December 18, 2014 in which the CBI had filed the FIR in 2013.
The IO said the court, however, did not agree with the
conclusion drawn in the final report filed by him and had taken cognisance of various offences against various private parties and public servants in October 2014 and had ordered the CBI to carry out further investigation.
The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to KSSPL.
The court had summoned the Madhya Pradesh-based company and its managing director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia, senior official and Chartered Accountant, Amit Goyal, former Coal Secretary H C Gupta and two government officials as accused in the case.
The other two government officials who were summoned as accused were Ministry of Coal's (MOC) then Joint Secretary, K S Kropha, and one of its then director K C Samaria.
These accused are facing trial for the alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC and under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
