Coal scam: ED attaches Rs 36.85-cr assets of MP-based firm

Assets worth over Rs 36 crore of a Madhya Pradesh-based company have been attached by the ED in connection with a coal blocks allocation scam case, the agency said on Tuesday.

It said a provisional order for attachment of properties like land, plant, machinery, office and factory buildings of Kamal Sponge and Steel Power Ltd (KSSPL), located in Rajasthan's Jaipur and Satna in Madhya Pradesh, and its director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia was issued by it on Monday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The agency said its probe had found that the company "had got the coal block allotted (to it) by mis-representing its net worth and production capacity and also by not submitting the requisite documents in order to embellish the claim for allocation of the Thesgora-B/Rudrapuri coal block by the ministry of coal to it".

It added that a special court in Delhi, dealing with the coal scam cases, had earlier convicted KSSPL, Ahluwalia and three government officials in a criminal case probed in this instance by the CBI.

"The probe revealed that the firm, as part of a criminal conspiracy, and on the ground that it had a very high probability of getting the coal block allotted, gained undue benefits amounting to Rs 69.02 crore on account of issue of shares on a very high premium of Rs 900 per share by alluring the persons/companies for filing application for allotment of shares, whereas the net worth of the company was very low during the select period.

"Moreover, KSSPL did not allot shares for an amount of Rs 36.85 crore to the investors and also did not refund the amount to the investors," the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said.

Therefore, the properties acquired by KSSPL and others valued at Rs 36.85 crore were attached, it added.

The agency had earlier attached assets worth Rs 32.17 crore of the firm and had also filed a chargesheet in the case.