Coal scam: Appeal against Delhi High Court order likely to be heard on November 3

New Delhi: CBI on Monday informed a special court that its appeal against the Delhi High Court's order quashing charges against Prakash Industries Ltd (PIL) and its director in a coal block allocation scam case is likely to come up for hearing before the Supreme Court next month.

The special leave petition (SLP) was preferred by CBI against the high court's September 5, 2014 verdict quashing charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy framed by the trial court against the firm and its Director (Corporate Affairs) A K Chaturvedi. Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar has now fixed the case for further hearing on December 1.

"It has been submitted by senior public prosecutor A P Singh that the SLP pending before Supreme Court is likely to come up for hearing on November 3. Accordingly, matter be now put up on December 1," the judge noted in his order. CBI had earlier told the court that appeal was filed in the apex court after the Law Ministry gave its nod to do so.

The other two accused in the case are Goutam Kumar Basak, the then Executive Secretary of Steel Ministry's Joint Plant Committee, and Soumen Chatterjee, the then Manager (F&A) of the committee. Basak and Chatterjee were earlier put on trial on charges of cheating, forgery and other offences under the IPC and under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly giving a misleading report regarding PIL's production capacity.

The Joint Plant Committee was set up in 1964 by the government to formulate guidelines for production, allocation and pricing of iron and steel and is the only institution which is officially empowered by the Steel Ministry to collect data on iron and steel industry. According to the CBI, on the basis of allegedly inflated production figures and "bogus reports" submitted by PIL, Basak and Chatterjee, the screening committee had allotted captive coal block at Urtan in Madhya Pradesh and Vijay Central in Chhattisgarh to PIL.

In its charge sheet, CBI had told the court that on an application by PIL in January 1998, Chotia coal mining block in Chhattisgarh too was allotted to the firm. CBI's charge sheet had alleged that PIL had mined coal from Chotia mining block in excess and diverted approximately 50 per cent of it to the black market and earned a profit of about Rs 22.7 crore.