Special court grants bail in fresh coal scam case

A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court has granted bail to all accused persons in a Coal block case related to M/s Sunil Hi-tech Engineers Ltd.

Special CBI Judge Arun Bhardwaj in an order passed on December 16, 2021 said that, "as the case of accused comes in category A, the applications for bail are allowed and accused are admitted to bail, subject to furnishing personal bond and surety bond for a sum of Rs 2,00,000 with the further condition that they will not try to influence prosecution witnesses or tamper with the evidence and before leaving the country, they will take permission of the court."

Sanjay Kumar, Deputy Legal Advisor (DLA) for CBI agreed with the submissions made by Counsel appearing for accused persons, Court noted.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal along with Advocate Mudit Jain, Counsel for Sunil Ratnakar Gutte argued that as per guidelines of the Supreme Court, the case of the accused would come under category A which deals with the offences punishable with imprisonment up to 7 years or less.

Advocate Aggarwal further argued that for grant of bail seriousness of the charge and severity of punishment has to be taken into consideration and in the present case the offence is only punishable with Seven (7) Years and the accused has deep roots in the society and fulfills the triple test for grant of bail.

Lawyers also argued that CBI has also filed the charge-sheet against the accused without arresting him and the Court had issued summons to the accused in the present matter, therefore the Custody of the accused was not required as the accused person has cooperated throughout the investigation including appearing before Investigation officer whenever called.

M/s Sunil Hi-tech was being represented by Counsel Honey Satpal for Liquidator, Sunil Ratnakar Gutte appeared along with Advocate Vijay Aggarwal and Advocate Mudit Jain, Vishwanath Iyer, Authorised Representative of M/s aXYKno Capital Services Pvt Ltd appeared along with Advocate Vikram Hegde, R Ramakrishnan appeared along with Advocate Vikram Hegde, Dominic Gabriel Philip (the then Managing Director, Maharashtra State Mining Corporation Limited) appeared along with Advocate Pankaj Kapoor, Avinash Manohar Rao Warjukar (the then Managing Director, Maharashtra State Mining Corporation Limited) appeared along with Advocate Pankaj Kapoor.

Special Court had issued summons to all the accused persons pursuant to the chargesheet filed in the Court by CBI Section 120B r/w Section 420 IPC and 13 (2) read with 13(1)(d) of P.C. Act, 1988 alleging that M/s Sunil Hi-tech Engineers Ltd, which was not fulfilling the technical evaluation as it did not have any mining experience in open cast or underground mining operations, but the Tender Committee consisting of the then Chairman, the then MD, the consultant etc, treated M/s Sunil Hi-Tech Engineering Ltd as technically qualified and their price bid along with the price bid of others was opened.

( With inputs from ANI )

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