Coal scam: Supreme Court halts evidence recording

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered that evidence shall not be recorded in a coal scandal involving M/s Revati Cements Private Limited till further orders.

Many individuals and entities allegedly involved in the coal scandal had approached the top court seeking quashing of the proceedings initiated against them by the Enforcement Directorate as they have been made witness by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the predicate offence.

The company had petitioned the top court challenging the order of the special CBI court trying the coal scandal.


Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, defence counsel for the company, had argued that his client despite having been cited as witness in CBI's case was made an accused by the ED. Aggarwal argued that a person can either be complicit in an offence or he can be witnessing it, but it is not possible nor prudent that, on the one hand, the predicate offence is established by relying on the testimony of a person and later that person is made accused by the ED and thus he ends up establishing the offence against himself which is in violation of the Indian Evidence Act.