Coal news and updates

Court to hear coal block case involving Jindal on Aug 4

A special court on Monday decided to hear next month a coal scam case allegedly involving Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal and others, after the accused said they were yet to receive certified copies of documents filed by the CBI along with its chargesheet.

As soon as the hearing commenced, special CBI judge Bharat Parashar asked the counsel representing the accused about scrutiny of documents supplied to them by the agency along with its chargesheet.

The defence counsel said they have applied for one set of the entire certified copies but have not received them yet.

To this, the judge enquired about it and the court staff said about half of the certified copies were ready and it would take another few days to supply it to the accused.  Counsel for the accused persons submitted that they have not yet received the certified copies as applied for.

The court staff has, however, submitted that as per information from copying agency about 50 per cent of certified photocopies are ready but it will take another 3-4 days to supply the entire copy of the said documents.

During the hearing, senior public prosecutor VK Sharma said he had gone through the e-copy of documents which were supplied to the accused and "the documents were legible".

However, one of the defence counsels showed some of the documents supplied to them by the agency to the judge, who said the documents were not legible.

The court then asked the defence counsel to take certified copy of all documents and inspect the case records.

The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand to two Jindal group companies, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt Ltd (GSIPL).

Naveen Jindal, former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, ex-minister of state for coal Dasari Narayan Rao, former coal secretary HC Gupta and 11 others, including five firms, are accused in the case.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com