Correspondence between govt & probe agency can't be given: CBI

Any correspondence between the government and a prosecuting agency cannot be provided to the accused, CBI today told a special court hearing a coal block allocation scam case.
The agency said this after some of the accused moved a plea seeking direction to CBI to provide some documents, including the correspondence between competent authority and the probe agency on the issue of grant of sanction to try two public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
"Any correspondence between the government and prosecuting agency cannot be placed on record or provided to the accused," senior public prosecutor V K Sharma told Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar.

Sharma said CBI has already provided the copy of charge sheet and all the other relied-upon documents to the accused in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of Thesgora-B Rudrapuri coal block in Madhya Pradesh to M/s Kamal Sponge Steel and Power Ltd (KSSPL).
During the hearing, the counsel appearing for KSSPL referred to the order on sanction given by the competent authority to prosecute K S Kropha, then Joint Secretary of Ministry of Coal (MoC), and K C Samria, who was then Director (Coal Allocation-I section) in MoC.
He said that based on the sanction order, the court had taken cognisance of alleged offence of section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC read with offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act against them also.

At this juncture, the prosecutor said that he needs some time to argue the matter.

The court then fixed the matter for further arguments on August 14.
The court had earlier taken cognisance of alleged offence under section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Kropha and Samria. The section deals with offence of criminal misconduct by a public servant by corrupt or illegal means.
The court's order had come after CBI on July 22 informed it that the Centre has accorded sanction to prosecute Kropha and Samria for the alleged offence under the anti-graft law.