Coal scam case: Supreme Court appointed prosecutor differs from CBI stand

NEW DELHI: An independent prosecutor, appointed by the Supreme Court, today differed with the CBI giving clean chit to ex-coal secretary H C Gupta and two officers in a coal scam case by telling a special court that they had "illegally allocated" coal blocks to a company.

Special Public Prosecutor R S Cheema's stand assumes importance as special CBI judge Bharat Parashar yesterday had rejected CBI's closure report in another coal scam case and summoned Gupta and five others including a firm as accused.

Cheema's submissions came in a case in which the CBI had earlier filed charge sheet against Navbharat Power Pvt Ltd (NPPL), its Managing Director and Vice-Chairman Harish Chandra Prasad and Chairman P Trivikrama Prasad.

CBI's investigating officer (IO) on September 30, had filed a supplementary final report in the case saying that no offence was found to have been committed by public servants.

"Now the question is who would be liable? Secretary of Coal Ministry H C Gupta, Joint Secretary of Coal Ministry K S Kropha and Director (Coal Allocation-I section) K C Samaria would be liable as it was in their knowledge that misrepresentation was done by the company (Navbharat Power Pvt Ltd).

"These three officials had illegally allocated coal blocks to the company," Cheema said while seeking their prosecution.

The court after hearing the submissions fixed the case for October 31 for consideration of the final report.

During the day's proceedings, Cheema told the judge that from now onwards, every document, including final reports, to be filed by the CBI in the court would be forwarded only through him.

He said he himself would return the documents to the CBI, if there would be any discrepancy in them.

The charge sheet was filed against NPPL and its officials for offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating) of IPC for allegedly misrepresenting facts, including inflated net worth, to acquire coal blocks in Rampia and Dip Side of Rampia in Odisha.