Ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta
A special court today ordered framing of charges against ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta and five others, including two senior public servants, in a case of alleged irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Odisha in January 2008.
Besides Mr Gupta, Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar also ordered framing of charges against two senior public servants, K S Kropha and K C Samria, M/s Navbharat Power Pvt Ltd (NPPL), now known as Brahmani Thermal Power Pvt Ltd (BTPPL), its chairman P Trivikrama Prasad and vice chairman Y Harish Chandra Prasad.
The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of Rampia and dip side of Rampia coal block in Odisha to NPPL.
While Mr Kropha was then Joint Secretary in the Coal Ministry (MoC), Mr Samria was the then Director (Coal Allocation-I section) there.
"It is prima facie clear that the false claims or the misrepresentations had the effect of deceiving Screening Committee and thereby MoC, Government of India so as to induce it to allocate a coal block in favour of company NPPL. In fact prima facie it is also clear that Ministry of Power would not have made any recommendation in favour of NPPL to MOC if no such false claim as regard its net-worth or land would have been made," the court said.
It said that prima facie charges under sections of 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and under several provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act were made out against all the six accused.
The court fixed October 21 for formally framing of charges against the accused.
The court had on August 19 last year granted bail to the accused after they appeared before it in pursuance to summons.
CBI, in its charge sheet, had alleged that the accused had misrepresented facts, including inflated net worth, to bag the coal block.
It had alleged that NPPL had fraudulently claimed in its application that it was supported by Globeleq Singapore Pvt Ltd, Navbharat Ventures Ltd and Mahalaxmi Group Ltd.
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