Deepali Kalia
Supreme Court postponed the hearing of a plea filed by Anup Majhi in an illegal coal mining case in West Bengal till July.
Anup Majhi is a director of a private company and was accused in the case of corruption and criminal breach of trust in relation to illegal mining and pilferage of coal from the leasehold area of Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) in certain parts of West Bengal. The case was registered back in November 2020.
The Supreme Court last Thursday had asked Majhi to cooperate with CBI in the investigation and on June 1st a bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice M.R. Shah had said that the interim stay granted against his arrest will hold.
Majhi had contested the order of Calcutta High Court which had allowed CBI to continue its probe into the alleged illegal mining and transportation of coal in West Bengal.
The petitioner claimed that the West Bengal government in November 2018 under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had withdrawn general consent to the agency for conducting probes in the state
The Investigation agency on the other hand had filed its affidavit stating that the state government’s consent was not necessary in order to investigate the coal mining scam.