Coal scam: Darda, Gupta put on trial, Soren gets relief

High-profile persons, including politician Vijay Darda and bureaucrat H C Gupta, were today put on trial by a special court in a coal scam case by framing charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust but gave relief to JMM chief Shibu Soren by dismissing a plea to make him an accused.
Charges were also framed against five others-- two senior officials K S Kropha and K C Samria-- private firm JLD Yavatmal Pvt Ltd, its Director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal and Darda's son Devendra after they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial in the case relating to alleged irregularities in the allocation of a Chhattisgarh coal block.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar dismissed with a cost of Rs one lakh the firm's plea to summon former Coal Minister Shibu Soren and then Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao, as additional accused in the case.
The court directed the firm to deposit the amount with Delhi Legal Service Authority and junked the plea which cited a book written by former Coal Secretary P C Parekh, that he had apprised Soren and Rao that the existing system of coal block allocation was discriminatory, but both politicians had over-ruled his concerns.
It fixed the main case for December 16 for admission and denial of documents.

It said prima facie charges for the alleged offences under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act are made out against the accused.

The court passed the order in the case pertaining to the allocation of Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh to the accused firm in which it had earlier rejected CBI's closure report.
CBI prosecutors V K Sharma and A P Singh had sought framing of charges against the accused saying the offences were made out against them.

The court had on November 20, 2014, refused to accept the
closure report of CBI in the case and directed it to conduct further probe the matter, stating that the former Rajya Sabha MP had "misrepresented" facts in letters written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was holding the Coal portfolio.
The court had said that Darda, the Chairman of Lokmat Group, had done so to get the Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh allotted to JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd.
It had said that "prima facie" offence of cheating was committed by private parties in "furtherance of conspiracy" hatched between them and the public servants.

JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd was allotted the coal block by the 35th Screening Committee.
CBI had earlier alleged in its FIR that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies in 1999-2005, but later filed a closure report saying no undue benefit was given to JLD Yavatmal by the Coal Ministry in allocation of coal blocks to it.
It had said that nothing substantial has emerged to establish cheating and criminal conspiracy among officials of the Ministry of Coal and JLD Yavatmal Energy Ltd's directors.