New Delhi: A Delhi court has accepted the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) closure report in a case concerning the allocation of four coal blocks to Nippon Denro Ispat Limited (NDIL), holding that the investigation found no material indicating criminal conspiracy, cheating or corruption by the company or any public servant.
Special CBI Judge Virender Kumar Kharta also dismissed protest petitions filed by Congress leaders Sandeep Dikshit and Manickam Tagore, who had sought further investigation or the summoning of the proposed accused.
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The petitions challenged the closure report filed by the CBI on December 23, 2023. In its report, the agency concluded that its investigation had not established conspiracy, cheating or abuse of official position by any public servant or private entity, including NDIL.
In an order passed on Wednesday, the court said there was no reason to differ from the investigating agency’s findings.
“Prima facie, no offence has been committed in the present case and there is no sufficient material on record to proceed against the proposed accused persons,” the court said while accepting the closure report.
The case arose from the allocation of the Lohara, Baranj, Bander and Kilhoni coal blocks in Maharashtra to NDIL between 1993 and 1998 for a proposed 1,000-MW power project.
The CBI began examining the allocations following a complaint submitted by six Members of Parliament to the Central Vigilance Commission in 2012. It registered a case against NDIL and unidentified public servants in December 2019 under provisions relating to criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption.
The court noted that NDIL no longer exists as a legal entity. Following a series of corporate changes, it was renamed Ispat Industries Limited, taken over by JSW Steel in 2010 and dissolved after its merger with JSW Steel in 2012.
Relying on a 2024 Supreme Court judgment, the court held that a company which has ceased to exist cannot be summoned or prosecuted. It further said the erstwhile company’s alleged criminal liability could not be transferred to the entity that subsequently took it over.
The complainants had alleged that NDIL misrepresented its association with Japan’s Mitsui & Co to secure the coal blocks. The court rejected the contention, observing that the foreign collaboration was not cited as a basis for the final allocation notification issued in 1996.
It also found no violation in the allocation of the Kilhoni block before its formal inclusion in the list of blocks earmarked for captive mining.
The court said the Coal Ministry was aware that Central India Coal Company Limited was associated with NDIL and that the two entities had common management and the same registered address. Captive mining rules permitted coal to be used by the allottee or an associated company, it observed.
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The Screening Committee had allotted the Kilhoni block to NDIL and directed Coal India Limited to include it in the captive-mining list. Coal India subsequently informed the ministry that the block, under Western Coalfields Limited, had been included for allocation to NDIL’s proposed 1,000-MW Bhadrawati Thermal Power Station.
The court also found no evidence of financial loss to the government. NDIL had deposited more than Rs 1.22 crore in connection with the coal blocks, but the amount was not refunded even after it surrendered the Kilhoni block a year later without taking physical possession of it.
Based on these findings, the court ruled that there was insufficient material to proceed against the company or any public servant and dismissed the two protest petitions.
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