Coal diversion scam: CBI books FIR against Hyderabad based Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills owners

Hyderabad: Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday issued an FIR for cheating against city-based Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills Limited and its Chairman L N Agarwal and MD Paritosh K Agarwal in coal diversion fraud. CBI sleuths on Thursday conducted searches on the company in the Secunderabad and Nagpur.

Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills Limited(SCML) headquarters is located at SD Road in Secunderabad and is into manufacturing of Yarn, Denim and garments. It also operates a denim plant in Ramtek in Nagpur.

SCML entered into a fuel supply agreement in 2008 April under linkage policy with Nagpur based Western Coalfields Limited(WCL) a government of India enterprise. As per the agreement WCL has to supply Annual Contract Quantity of 4968 tones to meet energy requirement of SCML's plant at Ramtek for a period five years which was extended further. Under the policy, the coal supplied at the notified rate has to be utilised for the energy requirement of the plant and not be diverted for any other purpose. In 2014 August WECL and SCML entered into another Fuel Supply Agreement for the supply of 1,13,000 metric tones of coal per annum for its captive power plant. The supply of coal commenced in September 2014.

Western Coalfields internal report nailed Agarwals

In the FIR against Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills the CBI Nagapur branch head, SD Mishra alleged, "WCL received specific information about the diversion of coal byS CML for a purpose other than for which it was being supplied. WCL constitutioned an inter-departmental committee in 2016 April for verification fo documents to find out end-use of coal. The committee was also looking into the diversion of coal by SCML,"

The committee found that the installed plant is underutilised and there was excess consumption of coal of 21598 tons in 2014-15, 50321 tons in 2015-16 and 58194 tons in 2016-17.

Another committee of WCL confirmed that 2016 report. The committee also observed that huge quantity of 1.23 lakh metric tones of coal was supplied in excess to the accused SCML since 2014.

Around 1.23 lakh tons of coal diverted by Suryalakshmi Cotton mills: CBI FIR

CBI in FIR against Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills alleged that instead of using the coals for its captive power plant Suryalakshmi cotton mills diverted the excess quantity of coal in the open market and sold the same at a premium in conspiracy with public servants of WCL. It is also alleged that LN Agawal and Paritosh Agarwal as directors of Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills entered into a criminal conspiracy with unknown public servants of WCL and obtained 1.23 lakh metro toness of excess quanitty of coal and caused loss.

CBI registred a case under criminal conspiracy, cheating and prevention fo corruption act. Interestingly former MP and now BJP leader G Vivek Venkataswamy is also a director of Surya lakshmi cotton mills.