Court orders framing of bribery charges against Naveen Jindal in coal scam

A special court on Friday ordered framing of an additional charge of abetment of bribery against industrialist and senior Congress leader Naveen Jindal and others in a coal block allocation case.

The court was hearing the case related to the allocation of Jharkhand's Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block to Jindal Steel and Gagan Sponge.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Bharat Parashar fixed August 16 for the formal framing of charges against the accused.

On April 29, 2016, the court had ordered framing of charges against the former MP and others under various sections -- criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal misconduct. But it had not included bribery charges.

Later, Jindal Steel's then advisor Anand Goel, Nihar Stocks Ltd Director BSN Suryanarayan and Mumbai's Essar Power Ltd Executive Vice-Chairman Sushil Kumar Maroo, JSPL's Deputy Manager (Finance) Siddharth Madra and Deputy General Manager Rajeev Aggarwal were chargesheeted as acccused in a supplementary chargesheet.