The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant more time to the CBI to complete its probe in the coal block allocation scam, directing it to file its remaining five charge sheets by March 28. The agency had sought to extend the deadline by four weeks.
A bench headed by justice RM Lodha passed the order after the CBI informed it about the progress made in the coal scam probe and on filing chargesheet in one of the cases registered by the probe agency in 2012.
The CBI has filed over 16 FIRs which include those against AMR Iron and Steel, JLD Yavatmal Energy, Vini Iron and Steel Udyog, JAS Infrastructure Capital, Grace Industries, Jindal Steel and Power, Rathi Steel and Power, Jharkhand Ispat, Green Infrastructure, Kamal Sponge, Pushp Steel, Hindalco, BLA Industries, Castron Technologies and Castron Mining and Nav Bharat Power.
These FIRs were registered after the agency probed three preliminary enquiries related to coal block allocation between 2006 and 2009, 1993 and 2004, and projects given under a government scheme.
Meanwhile, the apex court asked the CBI to file reply to the income tax department?s plea seeking access to inspect the documents seized by it in connection with the coal block allocation case of Hindalco Industries in order to ascertain relevance in the tax proceedings initiated against the Aditya Birla Group.
Seeking permission to permit its officer Ankita Pandey to inspect the documents for tax purposes only, the revenue authorities said that the necessity has arisen in view of the apex court directions in May last year asking the CBI director to maintain secrecy of the inquires and investigation into the coal scam.
Alka Gautam, joint director, income tax, sought modification of the May order to allow its officer to go through the ?incriminating? documents which were seized alongwith unaccounted cash of more than R25 crore during searches by the CBI at the Delhi office of Hindalco Industries, which has been booked by the agency for alleged corruption in coal block allocations.
The cash was seized under income tax laws and further proceedings to check the source of the money is on, it said, adding that ?post-search enquiries are in progress and the appraisal report is being finalised by the investigating officer (Dy DIT).?
The department further also assured the court that it will not interfere with CBI probe in the case and the documents will be inspected only to ascertain whether they are useful in the tax proceedings.
The CBI had in December last year questioned some officials of the Aditya Birla Group as part of its investigation against leading industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Birla, former coal secretary PC Parakh, along with unidentified officials of Hindalco, have been mentioned as accused in the FIR which CBI had lodged on October 15. The FIR alleges that an undue favour was extended to Hindalco while allocating a coal mine that was earlier meant exclusively for Neyveli Lignite, a public sector company.