Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, August 21: The CBI has concluded its investigation into allegations of irregularities in the award of a contract for supplying imported coal to the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation by Adani Enterprises and a former head of the National Cooperative Consumer Federation, officials said.
The central agency has submitted the closure report before a special CBI court for the case that was registered in 2020 and in which it also charged the then-managing director of the NCCF, G. P. Gupta, and senior advisor, S. C. Singhal.
The special court will now decide whether to accept the closure, send it back to the CBI for additional investigation, or move through with the trial based on the evidence at hand, the officials said.
On the basis of a complaint from the then-deputy secretary of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Premraj Kuar, the CBI had filed the case against Adani Enterprises, the former NCCF chairman Virender Singh and others in 2020 after a three-year-long preliminary investigation.
The CBI informed the special court that Kuar had voluntarily retired from his position and the court has now given summons to the retired officer and the current incumbent requesting that they show up for the next hearing.
The CBI had filed a case of cheating and corruption against Adani Enterprises and the previous chairman of the multi-state cooperative NCCF based on the investigation’s findings for suspected irregularities in choosing a company for a tender to provide coal to power plants in Andhra Pradesh.
The Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO) issued a limited tender inquiry for the supply of six lakh metric tonnes (MT) of imported coal via seaports to the Rayalaseema Thermal Power Plant (RTPP) in Kadapa and the Narla Tata Rao Thermal Power Plant in Vijayawada on June 29, 2010, according to the CBI FIR.
The agency had claimed that senior NCCF personnel had engaged in post-tender negotiations with Adani Enterprises to grant the business undue benefits even though it did not meet the requirements.
It had filed a complaint against the company and the officials under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly favouring the Ahmedabad-based firm and violating rules during the tender process.
