GIL director to appear in court on February 12

A court here on Monday directed Gondwana Ispat Ltd (GIL) director Ashok Daga to appear before it on February 12 in connection with a coal block allocation case.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Bharat Parashar allowed Daga's plea seeking exemption from personal appearance citing his daughter's wedding on Monday.

He was to appear on Monday after a summons against him last month.

The court has also directed the company to appear through its authorised representative on the next date of hearing.

The court had summoned them for the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating under Indian Penal Code.

The court was hearing a case related to alleged irregularities in allocation of Odisha's Majra coal block allocated to the accused company in 2003.

In its chargesheet, the CBI said Daga had made "unsubstantiated claim even towards financial preparedness and tie up regarding iron ore with Odisha government".

It has alleged that as the then Ministry of Coal (MOC) was not following any system of checking falsity of information provided by an applicant company, GIL and Daga in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy misrepresented to various government authorities and induced them to reserve or allocate Majra coal block in their favour.

The CBI has claimed that during probe it was found that though after allocation of the coal block in 2003 Daga had filed an undertaking to Ministry of Coal that he will install plant or carry out its extension and develop the coal mine, he sold off the company to Nand Kishore Sarda while earning huge profit in October 2005.

--Indo- Asian News Service

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