SC refers Jindal's plea to other bench hearing coal scam cases

The Supreme Court today said that a petition by industrialist Naveen Jindal, challenging framing of charges against him in a coal block allocation scam, would come up before a bench which is hearing the coal scam cases as one of the two judges wanted to recuse from the matter.
"List it after two weeks before a bench in which one of us is not there. The matter be listed before the bench hearing the coal scam matters," a bench of Justices J S Khehar and R Banumathi said while passing the recusal order.
The bench, however, did not make it clear as to which of the two judges wanted to recuse from the hearing the matter.

Besides Jindal's plea, several other accused who are facing prosecution in separate coal scam cases have also moved the apex court challenging framing of charges against them.
A special court, set up by the apex court to exclusively deal with coal scam related cases, had framed charges against Jindal and others, including former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, in the Jharkhand's Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block allocation case.
They were put on trial by the special court for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust under IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act in the case.

Apart from Jindal, Rao and Koda, the special court had also ordered to put on trial former Coal Secretary H C Gupta and 11 others, who were chargesheeted by CBI in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block to Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and Gagan Sponge Iron Private Ltd in 2008.
All the accused have denied the allegations levelled against them by CBI in these cases.