Court issues notice to seven political leaders including Minister of State on CBI's closure report in coal block case

New Delhi [India], July 10 : The Rouse Avenue Court on Wednesday issued notice to seven political leaders including Minister of State Ravneet Singh on a closure report filed by the CBI in a case related to alleged irregularities in coal block allocation.
Special CBI judge Arun Bhardwaj issued notice to Ravneet Singh, Manickam Tagore, Sandeep Dikshit, Harish Chaudhary, Ch. Lal Singh, Raghuveer Singh Meena, Ijyaraj Singh for August 20.
They have been issued notice in the CBI case against M/s Nippon Denro Ispat Limited.
A complaint was given by then-seven MPs on September 5, 2012, alleging irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks from 1993 to 2004.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently filed a closure report and opined that during the investigation no offence of criminal conspiracy, cheating or abuse of an official position has been found to committed by any public servants or private entity including the FIR-named company Nippon Denro Ispat Limited (Presently dissolved and merged in JSW Steel Limited), said the order passed by the court on July 10.
Another complaint was given on September 14, 2012, by then MP Sandeep Dikshit in which he had given a list of coal blocks that required in-depth investigation on the process and manner in which those were allocated. He gave a list of 24 coal blocks with his letter of September 14, 2012, and the Khiloni coal block which was the subject matter of investigation in this case was not one of the coal blocks named by Sandeep Dikshit, the court noted in the order.
However, he reiterated in his letter of September 14, 2012, that the allocation of coal needs full and complete investigation since the inception of a new policy in 1993.
The court also noted that the complaint of September 5, 2012, was made by seven MPs, letter of September 14, 2012, was signed only by Sandeep Dikshit mentioning that other MPs were not in Delhi and he was sending a letter and list on behalf of other MPs.
On a reference by the Director CVC a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) was sought for a detailed inquiry into the matter. Thereafter a Regular Case (RC) was registered by the CBI.
Earlier, it was submitted by the CBI that these MPs gave a general complaint alleging irregularities in allocation, they did not give specific complaint against the company accused in this case.
"In the opinion of the court, before considering the closure report, a notice is required to be issued to the seven aforesaid complainants in the matter," the special judge said in the order.