Coal scam: CBI for summoning of 2 govt officers on graft charges

The court has reserved its order for October 30

The CBI today approached a special court seeking summoning of two serving senior public servants on alleged corruption charges in a coal blocks allocation case in which the judge had earlier summoned them as accused along with former coal secretary H C Gupta and others.

The agency moved a plea before Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar, who had on October 13 summoned six accused including Gupta and Madhya Pradesh-based Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL) after refusing to accept the CBI's closure report.

Senior public prosecutor V K Sharma moved a plea before the court saying that Coal Ministry's then Joint Secretary, K S Kropha, and then Director (Coal Allocation-I section), K C Samaria, were already summoned as accused for offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) under the IPC.

Sharma said that these two accused should also be summoned for the offences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the court has the power to give direction to place the matter before sanctioning authority to consider the issue of grant of sanction to prosecute these serving public servants.

The court, after hearing CBI's submissions, reserved its order for October 30.

"During the course of arguments it has been submitted that this court has the power to direct further investigation to CBI under section 173(8) CrPC and to direct that the matter be placed before the sanctioning authority to consider the question of grant of sanction or not to prosecute the public servants involved in view of the detailed order dated October 13, 2014 passed by this court. Accordingly matter be put up on October 30, 2014 for orders," the judge said.

The court, in its detailed order passed on October 13, had noted that no cognisance of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act could be taken against Kropha and Samaria for want of sanction as they are still in government service.

Among the six accused summoned by the court, only Gupta was summoned for offences under Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case pretains to alleged misrepresenting of facts, including inflated net worth, by KSSPL to acquire Thesgora-B/ Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh.