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Coal scam: Court to hear case against two public servants

A special court today fixed October 1 for hearing a coal block allocation case, in which the Delhi High Court recently quashed charges against Chhattisgarh-based Prakash Industries Ltd and its director.

The matter was fixed for October 1 after CBI said it required time to examine as to which of the alleged offences against the two remaining accused, who were public servants, should sustain and what evidence was to be led now.

"Senior public prosecutors for CBI, however, stated that as they have been appointed (recently), before proceeding further for recording of prosecution evidence they would first like to go through the file to examine for which of the offences the trial against the two public servants shall continue and what evidence is to be led now," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.

The court also asked the CBI prosecutor and investigating officer to prepare a fresh list of witnesses and also mention the reason for examining them.

The High Court on September 5 had quashed the charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy framed against Prakash Industries Ltd (PIL) and its Director (Corporate Affairs) AK Chaturvedi.

The trial court had earlier framed charges of cheating, forgery and corruption against Executive Secretary Goutam Kumar Basak and Manager (F&A) Soumen Chatterjee of the Ministry of Steel's Joint Plant Committee (JPC) for allegedly giving misleading report on production capacity of PIL.
The JPC was set up in 1964 by the government for formulating guidelines for production, allocation and pricing of iron and steel and is the only institution which is officially empowered by the Ministry of Steel to collect data on iron and steel industry.

The trial court had also found prima facie evidence to frame charges against PIL and its Director Chaturvedi.

During the hearing, the counsel for PIL and Chaturvedi apprised the court of the high court's order on quashing of charges.

The counsel appearing for Basak and Chatterjee also submitted that in view of the observations made by the high court in its September 5 order, he intended to move the appellate court for quashing of the proceedings.

He argued that charge against his clients was that they had conspired and prepared a forged document but the high court has held in its order that there was no conspiracy.

The counsel also said fresh sanction would be required to prosecute the two government officials as the entire facts of the case have now changes.

To this, the judge said the conclusion drawn on the facts has changed but facts are still same. The CBI had earlier filed a supplementary charge sheet on the aspect of coal diversion.

According to the CBI, on the basis of inflated production figures and "bogus reports" submitted by PIL, Basak and Chatterjee, the screening committee allotted the captive coal block at Urtan in Madhya Pradesh and at Vijay Central in Chhattisgarh to PIL.

In its chargesheet, the CBI had said that the PIL in connivance with Hind Energy & Coal Benefication (India) Pvt Ltd and various officials of the Ministry of Coal, Ministry of Steel and the JPC, got allocated the coal blocks "using false and fabricated documents".

It had told the court that on an application by the PIL in January 1998, Chotia coal mining block at Chhattisgarh too was allotted to it.

The agency had alleged that PIL, through its April 12,2007 application, again applied for allotment of mining block for its steel plant at Champa in Chhattisgarh for expansion of its capacity, and to justify its claim, it filed false and fabricated copies of central excise returns showing inflated production figures from December 2007 to March 2008.

CBI's charge sheet had alleged that PIL had mined coal from Chotia mining block in excess and diverted approximately 50 percent of it to the black market and earned a profit of about Rs 22.7 crore.

Source: PTI