Hindustan Times reported that the Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday registered another preliminary enquiry into the coal block allocation scam which will cover period between 1993 and 2004.

The CBI has named 24 companies and unidentified public servants in the PE. The companies include joint venture vehicles formed by state government corporations and private companies.

Between 1993 and 2004, companies like BLA Industries, Monet Ispat, Jayaswal Neco, Fieldmining & Ispat, Prakash Industries and Bhushan Limited were allocated coal blocks.

Despite registering two PEs, the CBI is not looking into the coal blocks allocated in 2005. First PE covers allocations between 2006 and 2009 and the second one will focus on allotments between 1993 and 2004, thus leaving 2005 out of any probe.

Interestingly, 18 private companies that got captive coal blocks in 2005 include Abhijeet Infrastructure, owned by Manoj Jayaswal, who has been named as an accused in three out of the seven FI Rs.

A CBI official said "We will fill these gaps later but as of now we have based our PE on the reference sent to us by the Central Vigilance Commission. The reference also entails names of 24 companies and joint ventures, therefore, all these firms have been named in the PE.”

Source - Hindustan Times

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