Coalscam: Court asks CBI to supply deficient copies to accused

A special court today directed CBI to provide copies of deficient documents filed along with its final report to accused, including former Minister of State for Coal Santosh Bagrodia, in a coal block allocation case.
The court's observation came after defence counsel moved applications saying some of the documents supplied to them by CBI were not legible.
The prosecutor told the court that he would ensure all the copies, which are deficient, are supplied to accused.
"Senior public prosecutor submits that he will ensure that all the deficient legible copies are supplied to the accused persons. To come up on October 14 for scrutiny of documents," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar 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, Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, his son Devendra Darda, former 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 alleged offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) under the IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) 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 under the IPC and PC 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 blocks, had "fraudulently" concealed the fact that its group firms had previously been allocated five coal blocks.