New Delhi, Oct 15 (IANS): A court here Wednesday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to further probe the coal block allocation case against Kolkata-based Vikash Metals and Power Ltd.
CBI Special Court Judge Bharat Parashar directed further investigation in the matter against the company and said that report of the fresh investigation should be detailed and conclusive in nature, duly supported with legally admissible reasons.
The report, the court added, should not be prepared "as per the whims and fancies of the Investigating Officer" as has been done till now.
In the last hearing the court observed that the CBI had withheld material documents and statements of witnesses in the closure report.
The court issued a show cause notice to investigating officers Rajbir Singh and Nirbhay Kumar, the CBI Superintendent of Police, and fixed the matter for next hearing Nov 10.
"The conclusion drawn by the investigating agency and the manner in which the investigation has been carried out or the final report has been prepared, it is difficult to accept that the documents recovered during the course of search operation at the office premises of VMPL and the residence of its directors or the statements of various witnesses recorded during the course of investigation were not withheld from this court with a malafide or deliberate intention, more so when the letter of cancellation of allotment of land issued by BAIDA was recovered from the office premises of the Directors of the company or its other officers," the judge said.
The court warned the CBI that in future no such inadvertent mistakes shall occur and said that CBI Director Ranjit Sinha and deputy inspectors general (DIG) supervising the investigation of the case, shall ensure that if they find the officers working under them to be lacking in the skills of investigation, they shall ensure proper training and refresher courses for them.
The court asked the CBI to find out whether the application made by the company VMPL was scrutinized for its eligibility and completeness by the coal ministry before sending the matter to screening committee as was required to be done as per the guidelines uploaded on the website of the ministry.
The court directed the investigating agency to find out whether the screening committee took into consideration the fact that VMPL had mentioned in their application only about their end-use project at Bihar and not that of West Bengal, and thus under what circumstances the coal block came to be allotted for the company's end use project, both at Bihar and West Bengal.
It told CBI that the report should also mention the names of various public servants, including officers of the coal ministry, who dealt with the applications during the course of entire process of allocation of the impugned coal block.
It directed the CBI to find out the role of different directors of the company VMPL and that of various other accused persons against whom the present case was registered.
A first information report was registered against Vikash Metals and Power Limited and its officials, accusing them of making false claims related to land allocation to get undue advantage in the coal block allocation in Sep 2012.
The accused were booked for the alleged offences under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 420(cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.