File picture of industrialist and former Congress lawmaker Naveen Jindal.
Industrialist and former Congress lawmaker Naveen Jindal conspired with top government officials including former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao to acquire a coal field in Jharkhand in 2008, the CBI said today.
In a chargesheet filed in a Delhi court, the CBI listed as accused 15 people including Mr Jindal and Madhu Koda, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has, as part of its inquiry, raided Mr Jindal's house and offices of his Jindal Steel and Power Limited.
Nearly 200 coal fields allocated by successive governments since 1993 were cancelled by the Supreme Court last year, which said they had been illegally awarded without a transparent bidding system. Some of those coal blocks have since been auctioned.
In 2012, the national auditor said that nearly Rs 1.86 lakh crores had been lost because mining licenses had been distributed to private firms in a process riddled with irregularities.
The CBI then started investigating suspected collusion between state officials and private companies in under priced sales of coalfields.