Supreme Court told 35 cases filed on coal firms

Email

On Monday The CBI instructed the Supreme Court that it had so far filed 35 cases against coal companies and investigation was continuing in respect of over 100 companies in the coal scam.

Senior counsel Amarendra Saran, appearing for the CBI, made this submission before a three-judge bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A.K. Sikri monitoring the probe in the coal scam cases. The bench took on record the submissions and directed the CBI to complete the entire probe by March 31.

Counsel for Common Cause Prashant Bhushan brought to the notice of the court the August 2014 judgment cancelling the coal block allocations and said the court had disapproved the diversion of coal by Reliance Energy from Sarsen coalfields, meant for ultra-mega power projects, for other purposes. He alleged that the company officials had visited former CBI director Ranjit Sinha’s residence over 60 times and pleaded for a CBI probe into this aspect as nothing had happened so far on diversion of coal. Mr Bhushan also submitted that several public sector firms, which had coal blocks, had handed over the coal blocks to private entities in the name of joint ventures.

The bench told the counsel that the court will look into these allegations on the next date of hearing and in the meanwhile asked the CBI to take instructions whether the probe being conducted covered these aspects also. The bench posted the matter for further hearing on April 27.