New Delhi: Former Minister of State for Coal Santosh Bagrodia, ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta and retired public servant L S Janoti were Tuesday summoned as accused by a Special Court in a coal scam case pertaining to allocation of Maharashtra's Bander coal block to AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar took cognisance of the alleged offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) under the IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
The court said on January 30, 2015, when the earlier order was passed in the case, Janoti was an active public servant so prior sanction of competent authority was needed to prosecute him for offence under the PC Act but since he has retired on May 31 this year, now there was "no bar" on taking cognizance of the offence against him.
"Thus, on account of L S Janoti having retired from government service and the competent authority having not taken any decision qua the issue of according sanction to prosecute L S Janoti despite record having been sent on February 20, it is clear that now there is no bar in taking cognizance of the offence under PC Act against him also," the court said.
"I, thus, without going into any further length of the matter and proceeding further from my detailed observations made in order dated January 30, 2015, hereby deem it appropriate to take cognizance of the offences of criminal conspiracy i.e. Offence under section 120-B IPC against the three public servants also i.e. H C Gupta, the then Secretary (Coal), Santosh Bagrodia, the then Minister of State for Coal, and L S Janoti, the then section officer, CA-I," the judge said while summoning them as accused for August 18.
These three accused were summoned as accused in the case in which the CBI had earlier chargesheeted Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, his son Devendra Darda, AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd and its Director Manoj Jayaswal as accused.
In its January 30 order, the court had observed that Bagrodia, Gupta and Janoti had allegedly committed criminal misconduct and facilitated accused firm AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd in unlawfully obtaining the coal block.
The court today observed that despite the case records having been sent to the competent authority on February 20 for according sanction to prosecute Janoti, no decision was taken on it till date.
"CBI sent the records of the case to competent authority i.e. Ministry of Coal on February 20, 2015 for considering according of sanction to prosecute L S Janoti for the offences under PC Act.
"However, this court continued to wait for a decision of the competent authority in this regard and finally on June 29, when the report of further investigation was filed by the CBI, it was reported that the competent authority has not yet taken any decision qua the issue of grant or refusal of sanction to prosecute L S Janoti," the court said.
It referred to a June 24 communication received by CBI from Director (Vigilance) of Ministry of Coal which said as Janoti has already retired on May 31, 2015 from Ministry of Home Affairs, so request seeking sanction for his prosecution has become "infructuous".
The court, in its order, also took cognizance of alleged offences punishable under section 120-B IPC read with section 409 IPC and section 13(1)(c)/13(1)(d) of PC Act against Manoj Kumar Jayaswal, Vijay Darda, Devendra Darda and AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd.
The court also said that Rajya Sabha term of Bagrodia, during which he was appointed as Minister of State for coal and when he had dealt with this matter was already over and, similarly, Gupta had also retired from government service so there was no bar on prosecuting them under the PC Act.
Janoti, who was earlier posted in Ministry of Coal, retired as Under Secretary in Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The court had earlier granted bail to Vijay Darda, Devendra and Jayaswal after they had appeared before it. Vijay Darda had denied the allegations against him.
The charge sheet was filed against the accused on May 27 last year for alleged the offences under IPC and PC Act.
Regarding AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd, CBI had claimed in its FIR that the firm, in its application form for allocation of coal blocks, had "fraudulently" concealed the fact that its group firms had previously been allocated five coal blocks.
