The Supreme court on Wednesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file a fresh status report within four weeks on the probe into the charges of “abuse of official position” by former agency chief Ranjit Sinha and the progress made in over 50 coal scam cases.
A Bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Deepak Gupta granted time to the agency after it sought an extension.
Mr. Sinha is accused of trying to impede the CBI’s investigation into the cases, which emerged in 2012 after a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was leaked to the media.
The court dismissed the plea field by lawyer M.L. Sharma seeking a direction to the CBI to take coercive steps against Naveen Jindal, alleged to be the main beneficiary of the coal scam cases.
The Bench also took note of a statement from advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for the CBI, that the probe agency had followed procedure and did not arrest the accused as it was not deemed necessary.
He further said that as many as 55 regular cases have been registered by the CBI in the coal scam cases and it had taken steps like impounding passports of certain persons, if there were apprehensions of them absconding.
He said that no arrest had been made as the offences were registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Supreme Court had earlier asked senior advocate R.S. Cheema to continue as the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) to conduct trials for the Enforcement Directorate, as well in the money laundering cases related to the coal block scam.
The court had been undertaking the exercise to find a replacement for Mr. Cheema as SPP for the ED cases, after he had urged that he be relieved as the prosecutor in the money laundering cases.
Mr. Cheema, who was appointed the SPP in coal block scam cases in 2014, had however said that he would continue as the SPP for prosecuting the coal scam cases filed by the CBI.
The CAG had found discrepancies in the coal block allocations made by the previous Manmohan Singh-led government, which had allegedly cost the national exchequer ₹1.86 lakh crore in losses. The CBI had filed a charge sheet in the case in April 2015.
