Coal news and updates

Coalgate: CBI recovers key missing files

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has recovered the crucial missing files pertaining to coal block allocations done between 2006 and 2009, said sources. Among the documents, CBI has also found the Congress MP Vijay Darda's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advocating coal block to one of his companies.

For past two months, CBI had been probing the conspiracy behind missing documents and the agency tasked its investigation team to look for files in various ministries like coal, power, steel etc. During the investigations, sources say, all the key 15-18 documents, barring a few papers, have been recovered. A top CBI officer said, "Some files have been found in the coal ministry itself while some have been provided by other departments".

In its list sent to the coal ministry earlier this year, the CBI had sought crucial records related to ongoing 13 cases which included the letter of Congress MP Vijay Darda recommending coal block for AMR Iron and Steel, one of the accused companies, documents related to allotments made to Tata Sponge Iron Private Limited, minutes of the 26th screening committee, allotment to Jharkhand Ispat Private Limited and the agenda form sent by the company to under secretary S K Kakkar. The coal ministry had claimed that files were missing.

CBI officials feel that the fear of a conspiracy case against officials may be the reason that the missing documents suddenly surfaced, adding, "We have all the relevant documents now".

The recovery of missing documents will help the agency in filing its chargesheets. Sources say that they will begin filing the chargesheets in its first few cases by the end of this month.

While locating the files, CBI had questioned several coal ministry officials in past two months as non-availability of files was delaying its efforts to file chargesheets in the registered cases. So far, CBI has registered 14 FIRs in the coal scam.

For the missing files, CBI had registered two preliminary enquiries (PEs): one related between 1993 and 2005 and another from 2006 to 2009. The agency is still making efforts to look for files between 1993 and 2005 as those allocations are still under enquiry, and it is even planning to close some investigations as it has not found any irregularities in the allocations.

Source: The Times of India