NEW DELHI: CBI on Friday filed charged against former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, his close aide Vijay Joshi, former coal secretary HC Gupta, ex-chief secretary A K Basu and four others in connection with allocation of coal blocks to Kolkata-based Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Ltd.
During Koda’s tenure, three allocations to private companies were recommended by the Jharkhand government.
In Vini’s case, against which agency had registered an FIR in September 2012 among the first set of coal scam cases, CBI had found that the state government had given a ‘positive recommendation’ to the company only when its owners sold it to Koda confidant Vijay Joshi.
The FIR said, “They showed 15 companies in their joint venture group having a net-worth of Rs 86 crore and turnover of Rs 768 crore. Inquiry revealed that only six companies were in their group and Rs 37 crore was their original net-worth, while only Rs 28 crore was the turnover.” “The owners of Vini also sold the company after the application,” it said.
CBI said Vini, which had been given a negative recommendation by the previous Arjun Munda government, got a favourbale report from the Kod aregime after the company sold its stakes to Vijay Joshi.
Besides Koda and ex-bureaucrats, the agency has named two serving public servants Basant Kumar Bhattacharya, and Bipin Bihari Singh and director of Vini Vaibhav Tulsyan.
All the accused have been charged for the offences punishable under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The chargesheet comes two months after the court had returned its final report filed in the case, observing that the probe agency had failed to give any plausible explanation to its queries. The decision to file chargesheet in the case came after the Supreme Court on December 8 gave its nod to the agency to file charge sheets or closure reports in coal scam cases in which it had earlier restrained the agency from doing so.
The charge sheet was filed before special CBI judge Bharat Parashar, who fixed it for consideration on December 22 after the investigating officer (IO) said he will file the necessary documents within a couple of days.
Also on Friday, CBI filed two more separate chargesheets in coal scam cases involving Nagpur-based Grace Industries Ltd and Jharkhand-based Jharkhand Ispat Pvt Ltd.
In Jharkhand Ispat case, the company, its directors RS Rungta and RC Rungta, an employee of the Rungta Group of companies KR Kedia and Naresh Mehtra, a private person, have been charge-sheeted. The allocation was in relation to Pakri Bvarwadih West and Gondal Para coal block situated in Jharkhand.
In the case of Grace Industries, CBI has named the company and its director Mukesh Gupta in the charge-sheet. It is for allocation of Lohara East coal block situated in Maharashtra.
TOI | Dec 13, 2014
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