Jharkhand Ispat’s directors granted bail in coal block case

New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) A court here on Wednesday granted bail to two directors of Jharkhand Ispat Pvt. Ltd. (JIPL) in a coal block allocation case.

Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge Bharat Parashar granted bail to two directors of the company – R.S. Rungta and R.C. Rungta.

Both the accused appeared before the court in pursuance of summons issued against them by the court Dec 18 last year.

The court directed them to furnish a personal bond of Rs.1 lakh each and one surety each of the like amount.

The court has posted the matter for further hearing Feb 2.

Meanwhile, the CBI told the court that two other private persons, Ramabatar Kedia and Naresh Mahto, who were also summoned as accused in the case, have reportedly died and they are verifying the facts regarding their demise.

The court has summoned them with the company JIPL as accused under various charges dealing with criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and falsification of account.

The case pertains to allocation of North Dhadu coal block in Jharkhand to JIPL after the court took cognizance of the chargesheet Dec 18 last year.

In its chargesheet, the CBI had alleged that JIPL had "grossly misrepresented" a number of aspects before the ministry of steel and ministry of coal (MoC) to inflate their claim and thereby induced the MoC officers and the screening committee to allocate the coal block to them.