Spl court to consider CBI chargesheet against Koda

A special court on Monday fixed January 9 for considering CBI’s chargesheet filed against former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, ex-chief secretary Ashok Kumar Basu, former coal secretary H C Gupta and five others in connection with a coal blocks allocation scam case.

Special CBI judge Bharat Parashar fixed the matter for consideration of chargesheet after the agency filed various documents related to the case in the court.

“Set of relevant documents has been submitted. Arguments heard. Put up on January 9, 2015 for consideration,” the judge said.

The court was hearing the matter in which CBI had filed a chargesheet against Koda, Basu, Gupta, two serving public servants, Basant Kumar Bhattacharya and Bipin Bihari Singh, director of Kolkata-based accused company Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Ltd, Vaibhav Tulsyan, and Vijay Joshi as accused.

All the accused have been named in the chargesheet 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 case pertains to allocation of coal blocks to Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd in Jharkhand’s Rajhara town in which its directors and unknown public servants of Coal Ministry, Jharkhand government and others were made accused in the FIR lodged by the CBI in September 2012.

During the hearing on Monday, CBI also filed set of relevant document in a case in which it had named in its chargesheet Nagpur-based Grace Industries Ltd and one of its directors Mukesh Gupta as accused for the offence under section 420 (cheating) of IPC in connection with a separate coal scam case.

The court has now fixed January 7 for considering CBI’s chargesheet in the matter.

In its FIR lodged in the case, the CBI had alleged that Grace Industries Ltd had bagged the Lohara East coal block in Maharashtra in 2008 by allegedly misrepresenting their net worth.

It, however, had not chargesheeted one of its other directors, Seema Gupta, who was named as accused in the FIR.

The chargesheet in the case involving Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Ltd was filed two months after the court had returned CBI’s final report filed in the matter, observing that the probe agency had failed to give any plausible explanation to its queries.

In its chargesheet, CBI has told the court that seven others, Sanjeev Tulsyan, Prashant Tulsyan, Nisha Tulsyan, Vimal Kumar Tulsyan, Nirmala Tulsyan, Hemant Kumar Aggarwal and Navin Kumar Tulsyan, were not named in the chargesheet as they were not found involved in any manner in commission of offences. The agency had told the court that sanction to prosecute Bhattacharya and Singh, who are still in government service, has been obtained from competent authority.