Coal scam: court to hear arguments on charges from Dec 10

A special court today fixed December 10 for hearing arguments on framing of charges in a coal block allocation scam case in which ex-Minister of State for Coal Santosh Bagrodia, Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda and others are accused.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar posted the matter for arguments after the advocates appearing for the accused said that scrutiny of documents supplied to them by the agency along with the charge sheet was complete.
"Counsel (for accused) said that compliance of section 207 of CrPC stands complete. Put up for consideration on charge on December 10 and December 11," the court said.

The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of Bander coal block in Maharashtra to accused firm AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd.
The court had earlier granted bail to Bagrodia, Vijay Darda, his son Devendra Darda, ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta, retired public servant L S Janoti and Director of AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd, Manoj Kumar Jayaswal, in the case.
The court had summoned them after taking cognisance of the alleged offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

In its January 30 order, the court had observed that Bagrodia, Gupta and Janoti had allegedly committed criminal misconduct and facilitated AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd in unlawfully obtaining the coal block.
The charge sheet was filed against the accused on May 27 last year for alleged offences punishable under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
Regarding AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd, CBI had claimed in its FIR that the firm, in its application form for allocation of coal block, had "fraudulently" concealed the fact that its group firms had previously been allocated five coal blocks.