Court returns chargesheet to CBI in coal block case

The court has returned the chargesheet after the CBI sought to drop names of four government officials.

In a major set back to the CBI, a Delhi court has returned a chargesheet filed by the agency in connection with the coal block allocation case — involving Vini Iron and Steel Udyog in Jharkhand’s Rajhara town.

The court has returned the chargesheet after the CBI sought to drop names of four government officials — two retired and two in service — citing that necessary sanction for their prosecution has already been applied to the ‘competent authority’ but the same has not been received.

The court has also observed that the “bare persual” of the report filed shows that there is “no legally admissible logic” for keeping four persons away from the involvement of criminality by merely saying that “no prosecutable evidence” could be collected.

Kaunain Sheriff M

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More