No response on sanction to try govt servants in Coal scam: CBI

CBI today told a special court it had not yet received any communication from Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on the issue of sanction to prosecute two senior public servants for their alleged roles in a coal block allocation scam case.
The agency said relevant files of the case were sent to competent authority on January 27 but they were still awaiting a response.
"It has been submitted (by CBI) that records were sent to the competent authority for considering according of sanction to prosecute the public servants on January 27. Accordingly, the matter be put up for July 2," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.

The two public servants against whom the court had asked CBI to place case records before sanctioning authority for according of sanction to try them for the alleged offence under Prevention of Corruption Act, are K S Kropha, then Joint Secretary of Ministry of Coal, and K C Samaria, then Director (Coal Allocation-I section) in the ministry.
CBI had earlier filed its final report of further probe in the case relating to alleged irregularities in allocation of coal block in Rampia in Odisha to Navbharat Power Pvt Ltd (NPPL).
The court, in its November 12 last year's order, had said the acts of former Coal Secretary H C Gupta and senior officials of the Ministry of Coal (MoC) then in overlooking alleged misrepresentation by NPPL for acquiring coal block, prima facie amounted to criminal misconduct.

In its order, the court had observed that while Gupta has retired, Kropha and Samaria were still in service and prior sanction was required to prosecute them.
CBI had earlier informed the court that NPPL director K V B Reddy has intimated that name of the company has since been changed to M/s Brahmani Thermal Power Pvt Ltd.