Coal news and updates

Court to hear arguments on revised report on 27 Oct

A special court today fixed October 27 for hearing arguments on a revised closure report filed by CBI in a coal blocks allocation case involving JAS Infrastructure and Power Ltd and others.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar put up the matter for October 27 after special public prosecutor (SPP) R S Cheema sought time to argue on the revised closure report filed by the agency today.

"Supplementary final report has been filed. SPP (Cheema) seeks some time to argue on the matter as compilation of the relevant documents is being prepared for a ready reference of the court, during the course of arguments," the judge said.

While filing the revised final report, the investigating officer (IO) told the court the flaw in this case was that previous allotment of coal block was concealed by the company.

He said this fact came out during the probe by CBI.

The court was hearing the case in which CBI has filed the closure report in the matter in which it had lodged FIR against Nagpur-based businessman Manoj Jayaswal and others for alleged irregularities by JAS Infrastructure and Power Limited in acquiring the coal blocks.

CBI had earlier told the court that during its probe it had not found misrepresentation of facts by JAS Infrastructure and Power Limited.

It had lodged an FIR in the case on the allegation that JAS Infrastructure and Power Ltd had not disclosed to the Coal Ministry that it was already in possession of coal blocks.

The company allegedly signed memorandum of understanding for small periods with a number of companies and added their equity to project their sound financial status at the time of application for coal blocks, CBI had alleged in its FIR.

However, during the investigation, CBI could not find any "prosecutable evidence" against the firm and others and filed a closure report in the case.

The court had earlier sought to know from CBI whether there was "transparency" in the screening committee's decision recommending allocation of coal blocks to JAS Infrastructure and Power Ltd.

It had also asked whether the functioning of the screening committee was against "public interest".

CBI's move to file the revised final report had come after the court earlier observed that the probe was "incomplete" and nothing was clear in its closure report and it was irked over the agency adopting different yardsticks in different cases and not following a uniform policy in its investigation.

Source: PTI