The Asansol Special CBI Court has released all the five arrested persons in the coal scam on bail, including the two former general managers of Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL).
Though three of the accused Anoop Majee, Joydeb Mondal and Narayan Kharka were present in the court, two other accused are still at large and the CBI could not frame charges against them. The Special CBI Court has directed the central agency to frame the charges as soon as possible.
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The next hearing of the case is on 9 August.
CBI has recently arrested five persons, Amit Kumar Dhar (former GM of ECL), Naresh Kumar Saha, former GM of ECL, Ashwini Kumar Yadav, Simanta Thakur and Vidyasagar Das.
All of them have been in judicial custody since their arrest by CBI.
The Special CBI Court has granted them bail. All these five accused have been named in the second supplementary chargesheet filed by the CBI.
Only one accused, Gurupada Majhi, who has been arrested by the ED is lodged in Tihar Jail in New Delhi. One accused, an ECL security official, has died during the CBI raid in his house.
Advocates Somnath Chattoraj and Sekhar Kundu, who appeared on behalf of the accused said that CBI has named 50 persons in the chargesheet so far. Out of which, two persons are still absconding.
There are 396 witnesses in the coal scam case. The CBI has filed the FIR in the high profile coal scam case in November 2020, barely few months before the Assembly polls in the state.
Tarakeswar Roy and Mohammed Shakil, two other persons named in the supplementary chargesheet filed by CBI are still absconding. All the 50 accused will have to be handed over 25,000 pages of documents filed by CBI at the court.
