A CBI official gestures outside the New Delhi office of Abhijeet Group, which owns JAS Infrastructure, after conducting a raid on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Sept. 4: The Central Bureau of Investigation today raided 30 locations across the country after filing cases against five companies for alleged criminal conspiracy to get coal blocks by fudging their net worth figures and misrepresentation of facts.

The investigative agency also named Congress MP Vijay Darda in one of the FIRs.

Five companies — JLD Yavatmal Energy Limited, in which Darda was one of the directors, JAS Infrastructure Capital, AMR Iron and Steel, Navbharat Power and Vini Iron and Steel Udyog — with their 20 directors and unknown government officials have been named in the FIRs, CBI sources said.

The filing of cases and raids come in the midst of a controversy over the CAG report on the coal block allocation that has stalled Parliament for more than two weeks.

However, the CBI said the action had nothing to do with the CAG report and it had been in the pipeline for quite some time.

The raids were conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Patna, Hyderabad, Dhanbad and Nagpur and on premises of owners of some companies.

“The cases have been registered in connection with the allegations related to getting coal blocks allocated on the basis of misrepresentations and false claims in the applications, presentations and connivance or lack of due diligence on part of public servants.

“Promoters of some of these companies have allegedly sold their stakes in an irregular manner after allocation of coal blocks,” the agency said in a release.

CBI sources said in one of the FIRs, Darda’s name figured as a director in JLD Yavatmal Energy which got Fatehpur East coal block in Chhattisgarh as part of the alleged criminal conspiracy by misrepresentation facts on the eligibility conditions.

In Dhanbad, Vaibhav Tulsyan, whose office and home were searched by the agency for his alleged association with Vini Iron and Steel, said he had sold the company to a close aide of the then Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, an Independent who was supported by the Congress.

“I do not know why the searches are taking place at my office and home. I have sold the company five months before coal block allocations. I was not the beneficiary allottee. My only fault was that I was the applicant for coal blocks.

“Because of the Naxalite problem, we were not able to run the company. Therefore, when Vijay Joshi, who was close aide of former chief minister Madhu Koda, approached us with a good offer, we sold the company to him. At the time of the coal block allocation, the company was already with Joshi,” Tulsyan said.

CBI sources said they were investigating if Vaibhav had only transferred the documents in the name of Joshi, who is now in jail along with the former chief minister, and was still deriving benefits from the company.