New Delhi: CBI is ready to file an appeal against a Delhi High Court order quashing charges framed against Prakash Industries Ltd (PIL) and its director in a coal blocks allocation scam case, with the Law Ministry giving it the go ahead to do so. Senior public prosecutor VK Sharma informed the special court that necessary permission has been granted to it by the authority to file a special leave petition (SLP) in Supreme Court against the high court's September 5, 2014 order.
"Senior PP VK Sharma submits that necessary permission from the competent authority for filing SLP in the present matter before Supreme Court has been received and the same is likely to be filed within a week's time," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar noted in his recent order.
The court has now fixed the case for further proceedings on March 26. CBI had earlier told the court that it was waiting for the nod of the Law Ministry to file an appeal in the case. The high court had quashed charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy framed by the trial court against PIL and its Director (Corporate Affairs) AK Chaturvedi.
The other two accused in the case -- Goutam Kumar Basak and Soumen Chatterjee -- have sought alteration of charges framed against them earlier in view of the high court order. The plea is pending before the court. Executive Secretary Basak and Manager (F&A) Chatterjee of Steel Ministry's Joint Plant Committee had told the court that it should alter the charges framed against them as the high court had quashed charges against PIL and Chaturvedi.
Basak and Chatterjee were earlier put on trial on the charges of cheating, forgery and other offences under IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly giving a misleading report regarding the production capacity of PIL.
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 CBI, on the basis of alleged inflated production figures and "bogus reports" submitted by PIL, Basak and Chatterjee, the screening committee 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 at Chhattisgarh too was allotted to it.
CBI alleged that PIL again applied for allotment of mining block on April 12, 2007 for its steel plant at Champa in Chhattisgarh to expand its capacity, and to justify its claim, it filed false copies of central excise returns showing inflated production figures from December 2007 to March 2008. CBI's charge sheet had alleged 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.
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