New Delhi: A special court today rapped the CBI for not seizing the passport of Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal, chargesheeted in a coalscam case, observing that exercise of discretion cannot be on "arbitrary grounds" and the agency should not adopt different yardsticks.
The court observed this after the CBI informed it that a decision was taken by them that passports of Jindal and some other accused chargesheeted in the case be not seized and only an intimation about it be sent to concerned passport officer that probe against Jindal was pending.
"..It is clear that ordinarily the passport of all accused persons in all cases are seized by CBI during investigation whenever a case stands registered against them and thereafter the passports are sent to the respective passport officers for action under Passports Act," Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.
"However in the present case for reasons best known to CBI a different policy was adopted," the court said while noting that although the discretion regarding this is vested with the investigating agency, "it is clear that exercise of such a discretion cannot be on arbitrary grounds."
It also observed that it was for the investigating agency to decide whether to seize passport of an accused pending investigation of a case or not.
The court asked the CBI Director to ensure that a uniform policy is laid down to be followed on this issue.
"In these circumstances, I deem it appropriate to direct CBI Director to ensure that a uniform policy be laid down to be followed in all such cases in future so that the precious time of the court is not wasted in dealing with such issues which primarily and prima facie arise out of arbitrary exercise of discretion by certain authorities," the judge said.
"A copy of such a policy so framed be also sent to this court within next 30 days so that this court may refer to the same in case similar issues arise in other cases," it said.
The court fixed May 6 for considering CBI's charge sheet filed against Jindal and 14 others, including five firms, in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand.
During the hearing, the court observed that out of 10 individual persons chargesheeted in the case, passport of only two accused, Suresh Singhal and Rajeev Jain, were seized by the agency.
On being asked about it, senior public prosecutor V K Sharma said that a notice under the CrPC was issued to Jindal directing him to submit his passport but "after seeking repeated extension of time he submitted a coloured photocopy of the passport and submitted that his passport should not be seized."
The prosecutor said thereafter a decision was taken by CBI that passport of Jindal and other accused be not seized.
The investigating officer said that he was not aware if any extension of Jindal's passport took place after this as on one occasion, the passport office had sought information from CBI about the case and the agency had intimated that probe into the case was in progress.
During the hearing, an assistant passport officer Deepak Sharma was also present in the court and he said that he would look into the matter and will clarify about it.
The court, however, observed that there has to be specific reasons in the case diary or crime file as to why a particular course of action was adopted qua one accused and not qua the other accused persons.
"If the CBI follows a uniform policy duly supported by cogent and legally sustainable reasons then certainly the precious time of court will not be wasted in deciding such issues," it said.
"It will be worthwhile to mention that in a given case CBI may prefer to seize passport of one accused and may not seize passport of other accused persons but in those circumstances the file should spell out the reasons as to why specific action of seizure of passport of those accused persons was resorted to and not qua other accused persons," it observed.
Besides Jindal, the CBI has chargesheeted former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, former Coal Secretary H C Gupta and 11 others in connection with the case.
Five firms -- Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, Jindal Realty Pvt Ltd, Gagan Infraenergy Ltd, New Delhi Exim Pvt Ltd and Soubhagya Media Ltd -- were also chargesheeted by CBI.
Six other individuals named as accused in the CBI charge sheet are -- Gyan Swaroop Garg, Suresh Singhal, Rajeev Jain, Girish Kumar Suneja, R K Saraf and K Ramakrishna Prasad.
All these accused were chargesheeted for alleged offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand's Birbhum district was allocated in 2008 to Jindal Group firms-- Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt Ltd (GSIPL).
The agency alleged in the charge sheet that Jindal group firms had misrepresented facts to acquire the coal block in 2008. The group has denied the allegations.
In its FIR lodged in the case, CBI had alleged that Jindal group was shown favour by the Jharkhand Government which had dropped other firms from its recommendation for allocation of coal block in the state in 2007.
The FIR was categorical that Ministry of Power was against the proposal for allocating the coal block to JSPL and GSIPL.
CBI had alleged that both JSPL and GSIPL misrepresented facts in its application/feed back form on the count of their preparedness in setting up their proposed end use plant as well the previous allocation of coal blocks to their group companies.
Regarding Rao, CBI had claimed that in order to influence the decision of the Screening Committee in favour of JSPL and GSIPL, the then Minister of State for Coal had written a note on July 27, 2007 to the Coal Secretary, who was also Chairman of the Screening Committee.
