Coal block allocation:HC sets aside trial against co Director

The Delhi High Court has quashed an order putting on trial Chhattisgarh-based firm Prakash Industries Ltd and one of its Directors in connection with a coal block allocation case, saying prima facie the material on record "is not sufficient" to support the lower court's decision.
Justice Sunil Gaur passed the order on the plea of the company and its Director of Corporate Affairs, A K Chaturvedi, against whom a trial court had framed charges along with others for allegedly giving a misleading report regarding the production capacity of the company in order to obtain a coal block.
"The charge sheet as well as the documents, which are part of the charge sheet, have been duly considered. Thereupon, a prima facie conclusion arrived at is that the material on record which forms the part of the charge sheet is not sufficient to support the conclusion arrived at by trial court.

"To say the least, trial court was not justified to put petitioners on trial merely because there is confusion about the production capacity of the operating kilns," the judge said.
The high court also said that "during the course of hearing, attention of the court was not drawn to any such circumstance to enable this court to prima facie infer that petitioners had conspired with their co-accused to commit the offences in question."
Apart from the company and Chaturvedi, the trial court had framed charges of cheating, forgery and corruption against Executive Secretary Goutam Kumar Basak and Manager Soumen Chatterjee of the ministry's Joint Plant Committee (JPC) for allegedly giving a misleading report on production capacity of the firm.

JPC was set up in 1964 by the government for formulating guidelines for production, allocation and pricing of iron and steel and is the only institution which is officially empowered by the Ministry of Steel to collect data on iron and steel industry.