SUBHASH VIDYARTHI, J. - (1.)Heard Sri Ajit Kumar Sinha Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Himanshu Hemant Gupta, Sri Aishwarya Sinha and Sri Raghav Tiberwal Advocates appearing on behalf of the applicants in Anticipatory Bail Application Nos. 1611 of 2023, 1617 of 2023, 1636 of 2023, 1638 of 2023 and 1639 of 2023, Sri. Purnendu Chakravarty Advocate for the applicants in Anticipatory Bail Application Nos. 1518 of 2023, 1523 of 2023 and 1602 of 2023, and Sri Rohit Tripathi Advocate, the learned counsel for the respondent - Directorate of Enforcement and perused the records.
(2.)All the aforesaid applications seek anticipatory bail for different accused persons in different cases, but on similar set of allegations arising out of a joint surprise check carried out on 25/3/2011 by some officers of Railways and Northern Coalfields Ltd. (NCL) at the factory premises of (1) M/s Swastik Cement Products Ltd., (2) M/s Fertico Marketing and Investments Pvt. Ltd., (3) M/s Jai Durga Industries, (4) M/s Sri Ram Fuels Pvt. Ltd. and (5) M/s Drolia Coke Industries Pvt. Ltd. It was found that the aforesaid companies used to receive coal from Northern Coal Fields Ltd. (NCL) for manufacture of Special Smokeless Fuel (SSF) and instead of processing the coal, the companies sold it in black market at a high premium causing wrongful loss to the government and wrongful gain to the accused persons.
(3.)On 13/4/2011, the C.B.I/ACB Lucknow filed 5 F.I.Rs. under Ss. 120-B, 420 of I.P.C. and Sec. 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 for causing wrongful gain to the companies by diverting the coal received from NCL to open market without processing to SSF. RC 4(A) 2011 was filed against M/s Swastik Products Ltd., RC 5 (A) 2011 against M/s Fertico Marketing and Investment Pvt. Ltd., RC 6(A) 2011 against M/s Jai Durga Industries, RC 7 (A) 2011 against M/s Sri Ram Fuels and RC 8 (A) against Ms Drolia Code Industries Pvt. Ltd. Unknown officials of District Industries Centre (DIC) and unknown officials of NCL have also been made accused in all the F.I.Rs. The C.B.I. filed five different charge-sheets dtd. 31/5/2012 in respect of the aforesaid 5 F.I.Rs.