CBI today told a special court that its appeal filed against the Delhi High Court's order quashing charges against Prakash Industries Ltd (PIL) and its director in a coal block allocation scam case is likely to come up for hearing before the Supreme Court in January next year.
The agency said though the special leave petition (SLP) has been filed before the apex court the respondents have not been served yet.
"It has been submitted that though the SLP has been filed in the Supreme Court by the CBI but the respondents have not been served yet... Accordingly, matter be now listed for February 16, 2016," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar noted in his order.
The SLP was preferred by CBI against the high court's September 5, 2014 order quashing charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy framed by the trial court against the firm and its Director (Corporate Affairs) A K Chaturvedi.
CBI had earlier told the court that appeal was filed in the apex court after the Law Ministry gave its nod.
The other two accused in the case are Goutam Kumar Basak, the then Executive Secretary of Steel Ministry's Joint Plant Committee, and Soumen Chatterjee, the then Manager (F&A) of the committee. They are currently out on bail.
Basak and Chatterjee were earlier put on trial on charges of cheating, forgery and other offences under IPC and under Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly giving a misleading report regarding PIL's production capacity.
The Joint Plant Committee was set up in 1964 by the government to formulate guidelines for production, allocation and pricing of iron and steel and is the only institution which is empowered by the Steel Ministry to collect data on iron and steel industry.
According to CBI, on the basis of allegedly inflated production figures and "bogus reports" submitted by PIL, Basak and Chatterjee, the screening committee had allotted captive coal block at Urtan in Madhya Pradesh and Vijay Central in Chhattisgarh to PIL.
CBI's charge sheet had alleged that PIL had mined coal from Chotia mining block in excess and diverted approximately 50 per cent of it to the black market and earned a profit of about Rs 22.7 crore.
