"We will finalise the companies that have to be booked by the end of the week. Of the 10 companies that are under the scanner at the moment, we will register cases against four or five in this set of FIRs," a CBI official said.
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Sources also indicated that the agency will shortly carry out searches in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa as part of the probe of the FIRs.
In the first set of FIRs the agency filed on September 3, five companies and their directors were booked for misrepresenting facts and colluding with government officials to ensure coal block allocations. According to sources, the companies that are to be booked now also have political connections.
The agency suspects a key role was played by some top officials in various ministries who facilitated the allocation of coal blocks to suspect companies.
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Apart from the companies, the CBI is all set to tighten the noose on some senior government officials from the states and the Centre for facilitating coal block allocation to ineligible companies.
According to sources in the CBI, Congress MP Vijay Darda, his brother Rajendra Darda - Maharashtra's higher education minister, and mining baron Manoj Jayaswal will be interrogated soon to get to the bottom of the conspiracy.
Sources indicate the agency is likely to question them about their links with former minister of state for coal Santosh Bagrodia during whose tenure one of their companies - AMR Iron and Steel - was allocated coal blocks.
"We will not just interrogate the directors of the companies named in the FIRs but also officials who we suspect had links with the companies. Some of the people who will be called for questioning could also be potential witnesses," a senior CBI officer said.
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Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
