Delhi Court discharges Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan, promoter in coal block allocation case

A Delhi Court recently discharged Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan Pvt. Ltd and its promoter Suresh Kumar Sharma in a case related to the coal scam probed by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) [CBI Vs. Suresh Kumar Sharma & Anr].In the case dating back to 2015, the CBI had alleged that the company and its management had been illegally allocated a coal block. The case was registered under provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Prevention of Corruption Act.Special Judge Sanjay Bansal noted that the company had applied for allocation for Captive Power Plant of 60 MW and since the end use was ‘power’, it could have been allocated a coal block.The Court said it was irrelevant where the power generated was to be further utilized. The applicant company had specified the end use i.e. power and had also mentioned the further use which was initially for paper mill, then changed to steel plant and later on changed to newsprint plant.However, the Court ruled that such an act of the company would not amount to an offence and after generating the power, it could be used for any purpose..The judge also opined that as the company had not concealed anything from the Ministry of Coal, the allocation of the coal block cannot be called an inducement by the accused persons. “Rather, it was a decision taken by MoC after considering the matter in its entirety. As there was no inducement, there was no cheating,” the Court said, adding there is no case for framing charges against any of the accused.The Court also concluded there was no haste on the part of the screening committee in approving the allocation in favour of the company. “As already observed above use of power either for steel plant or for paper mill or for newsprint plant was of no relevance and what was relevant was use of coal for generation of power,” it added..The Court accepted the argument that trial in the case would be futile as the prosecution had failed to produce the documents regarding the manner of processing the company’s application.It rejected the prosecution’s argument that the company was required to be engaged in generation of power at the time of application.“It is a matter of fact that many companies which were not so engaged had been allocated coal blocks. It was sort of accepted policy to allocate coal blocks to such companies. A-2 company does not incur any liability on this aspect,” said the Court while discharging the accused.Senior Advocate Siddharth Aggarwal with advocates Meherunnisa Anand Jaitley, Rajiv Shanker Bhatnagar, Tejasv Anand and Uddeshya Singh represented the accused. Senior Public Prosecutor NP Srivastava represented the CBI[Read Order]