Coal scam: Court pulls up CBI for not filing progress report

The CBI was today pulled up by a special court for not filing the progress report of further probe in a coal scam case involving Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal, ex-Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and others.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar expressed displeasure over the agency's failure in properly following the procedure of agency's manual in this case and directed the investigating officer (IO) to file the report tomorrow along with the approval granted by his senior authority.
During the hearing, the court asked the IO to produce the case diary and after perusing it, the judge questioned the officer why it was not properly maintained and why details of further investigation were not mentioned in it.

The IO told the court he had submitted the progress report before senior authority for approval.
To this, the court asked why was this fact not mentioned in the case diary.
The court had earlier directed CBI to verify the death of Radha Krishna Saraf, an accused and former Director of Gagan Sponge Iron Private Ltd (GSIPL), after it was informed by his counsel that he had recently died of a heart attack here.

It had earlier directed the CBI to file a report on its further probe in the case, after the agency had sought more time to file the report.

On September 2, the CBI had filed a report in a sealed cover which included statements of certain persons recorded during the course of further investigation.
The court had earlier allowed CBI's plea that they needed to probe the case further in light of certain disclosures made by a chartered accountant, Suresh Singhal, who had sought the court's nod to turn approver.
It had also allowed Singhal's plea for pardon and ordered deletion of his name from the list of accused.
CBI has alleged that ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, also accused in the case, had favoured Jindal group firms -- Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Gagan Sponge Iron Private Ltd (GSIPL) -- in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand.

Opposing CBI's contention, all the accused had said there was no evidence to show that they were in any conspiracy during the coal block allocation process. They had also denied the allegations levelled against them by CBI in its charge sheet.