A Delhi court recently discharged former Minister of State (Coal) late Santosh Bagrodia and former Member of Parliament Vijay Darda in a case related to alleged interference with the probe into a case connected to Coal scam..Special Judge (PC Act) Arun Bhardwaj of the Rouse Avenue Courts also discharged CBI’s ex-Additional Legal Advisor K Sudhakar and Darda’s son Devendra Darda. Pertinently, the Court also made a favourable observation about then CBI director, late Ranjit Sinha, saying he never scuttled the probe as alleged.The Court found no conspiracy involving the accused. “Even the final word of CBI i.e. the decision to chargesheet or not any accused is not the final word as it is subject to legal scrutiny by the concerned court which can differ with its opinion and order further investigation/can summon the accused on the basis of material on record though not chargesheeted by Investigating Agency and can refuse cognizance for accused chargesheeted by the Investigating Agency,” the Court said. .The case related to the allocation of Bander coal block to a company named AMR. It was the case of the CBI that an amount of ₹24.6 crores was given by AMR to a company controlled by the Darda as quid pro quo for their help in securing the deal. It was alleged that then CBI Director Ranjit Sinha and the bureau’s legal advisor K Sudhakar entered into a criminal conspiracy with Darda and Bagrodia. As a result, the probe was manipulated and diluted to save certain people. While allegations were made against Sinha, he was not chargesheeted. .The trial court said there was not enough evidence to frame charges against the accused. It added that Sinha did not use his position to scuttle the probe."Ranjit Sinha did not abuse his authority to scuttle the case against Devender Darda. Had there been a criminal conspiracy, as alleged in the chargesheet the Director, CBI would have followed the opinion of ALA, K.Sudhakar and would have exonerated Devender Darda. Filing of the chargesheet against Devender Darda under section 120 B read with 420 IPC shows that Ranjit Sinha showed no favour to Devender Darda," the Court concluded. Hence, it discharged all the accused..Advocates Naveen Kumar, Aditi Raghav Arora, Abhishek Mahal and Tushar Agarwal appeared for K Sudhakar. .[Read Judgment]
