Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and seven others were summoned as accused in a coal block allocation scam case by a special court here today.
Besides Koda, the court summoned as accused two retired IAS officers, former Coal Secretary H.C Gupta, former Jharkhand Chief Secretary Ashok Kumar Basu and five others, including two serving public servants, Basant Kumar Bhattacharya and Bipin Bihari Singh, in the case pertaining to allocation of coal blocks to Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd in Jharkhand’s Rajhara town.
The company, along with its director Vaibhav Tulsyan and one Vijay Joshi, has also been summoned as accused by Special Judge Bharat Parashar, who took cognisance of the CBI’s charge sheet in the case.
The court summoned all the accused to appear before it on February 18.
The accused have been named in the charge sheet for offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 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 the Union Coal Ministry, the Jharkhand government, and others were made accused in the FIR lodged by CBI in September 2012.
The charge sheet was filed two months after the court had returned CBI’s final report in the matter, observing that the agency had failed to give any plausible explanation to its queries.
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 as accused as they were not found to be involved in any manner in the commission of offences.
In its FIR lodged against Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Ltd, CBI had alleged that initially the firm did not have the recommendation of either the Union Steel Ministry or Jharkhand government but the then Jharkhand Chief Secretary, who had attended 36th Screening Committee meeting on July 3, 2008, had signed minutes of the committee that had recommended allocation in favour of the firm.
CBI had alleged that the company had fraudulently claimed an inflated net worth. The ownership of the firm too had changed hands during the intervening period of the 36th Screening Committee.