Ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda charge-sheeted in coal scam

Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and the state ex-chief secretary Ashok Kumar Basu, former coal secretary HC Gupta and five others have been charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a coal scam case relating to allocation of blocks to a Kolkata-based firm.

The charge sheet was filed two months after the court on September 4 returned the CBI's final report filed in the case observing that the probe agency had failed to give any plausible explanation to its queries.

The decision to file the charge sheet came after the Supreme Court on December 8 had allowed the CBI to file charge sheets or closure reports in coal scam cases in which it had earlier restrained the agency from doing so in view of allegations against its then-director Ranjit Sinha.

The charge sheet was filed before special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar, who fixed it for consideration on December 22 after the investigating officer said that he will file the necessary documents within a couple of days.

Besides Koda and the two senior retired bureaucrats, the CBI has named two serving public servants Basant Kumar Bhattacharya and Bipin Bihari Singh, director of Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Limited Vaibhav Tulsyan and Vijay Joshi as accused. Kolkata-based Vini Iron Steel and Udyog Limited has also been arrayed as an accused in the case.

All the accused have been chargesheeted for offences punishable under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case pertains to allocation of coal blocks to Vini Iron and Steel Udyog, in Jharkhand's Rajhara town, in which its directors and unknown officials of the coal ministry, Jharkhand government and others were named accused in the first information report lodged by the CBI in September 2012.