Coal scam: Court summons ex-coal secretary, firm director as accused

New Delhi: A special court summoned former Coal Secretary H C Gupta, Delhi-based firm Pushp Steels and Mining Pvt Ltd and its director Atul Jain as accused for their alleged involvement in a coal block allocation scam case. Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar took cognizance of the charge sheet filed by CBI in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of a coal block to the accused firm in Chhattisgarh. The court summoned them as accused for August 3.

CBI had filed the charge sheet in the case on May 20 this year for alleged offences under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Pushp Steels and Mining Pvt Ltd was allotted Brahmapuri coal block in Chhattisgarh on the recommendation by the Screening Committee for its proposed Sponge Iron End Use Project in Durg district. An FIR was lodged against Pushp Steels and Mining Pvt Ltd and others in April 2013. The agency had alleged that the firm had misrepresented facts while applying for the coal block. The agency had conducted searches at various places in Delhi, Ghaziabad and Raipur in Chhattisgarh at the offices and factory of the firm as well as the residential premises of its Directors Atul Jain and Sanjay Jain. It had alleged that the company got mining lease on the basis of recommendation from the Chhattisgarh government despite having no experience and lacking enough capital required for starting mining operations.

CBI had earlier claimed that the allocation of Brahmapuri coal block was done on the basis of alleged false information that the firm possessed an iron ore mining lease, when it had none. "It was further alleged that the company did not have any experience in steel manufacturing and the net worth of the group companies/firms was around Rs 3.01 crores which was insignificant," it had said.