Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday filed its first chargesheet in the coal block allocation scam in a Delhi court.
The chargesheet has been filed against Navabharat Power Private Limited and its two directors.
The CBI named the company and its two directors - P Trivikrama Prasad and Y Harish Chandra Prasad - as accused in the case.
According to the chargesheet, Navabharat, along with other companies, misrepresented facts to get coal block allocation. The Supreme Court will be apprised about it.
They were formally charged in court under various sections dealing with cheating and criminal conspiracy.
The chargesheet was filed before Special CBI Judge Madhu Jain.
The CBI said in order to "embellish its claim for allocation of coal block", the Navabharat Power Pvt Ltd "fraudulently" claimed that it was having the required net worth to get the coal mines.
The agency added that inquiry also revealed that officials of the Coal Ministry in pursuance of criminal conspiracy, wilfully and purposefully, did not scrutinise the aforesaid documents regarding the false claims/concealment of facts by the company.
Navabharat Power Pvt Ltd was acquired by Essar power in 2010 and thus the company was facilitated in getting undue advantage in allocation of the Rampia and Dip Side of Rampia coal blocks.
The CBI has filed over 16 FIRs, which included those against AMR Iron and Steel, JLD Yavatmal Energy, Vini Iron and Steel Udyog, JAS Infrastructure Capital Pvt Ltd, Grace Industries, Jindal Steel and Power, Rathi Steel and Power Ltd, Jharkhand Ispat, Green Infrastructure, Kamal Sponge, Pushp Steel, Hindalco, BLA Industries, Castron Technologies and Castron Mining and Nav Bharat Power Private Limited.
These FIRs were registered after the agency probed three preliminary enquiries related to coal block allocation between 2006 and 2009, 1993 and 2004 and projects given under a government scheme.
According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), an estimated loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crores was caused to the national exchequer in the coal block allocation scam.
(With Agency inputs)
