Jindal Steel lodges bribery case against NGO activist

RAIPUR - Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (JSPL) has lodged a case against an environmental activist in Chhattisgarh for allegedly demanding Rs.5 crore for not protesting at a public hearing on the company’s thermal power project in the state, police said Friday.

The activist denied the charges and termed them an attempt to check his campaign against environmental hazards.

JSPL senior general manager Sanjeev Chouhan had registered an FIR with Raigarh district police Wednesday against Ramesh Agrawal, the convener of NGO Jan Chetana Manch, which is active in environment protection sector in the district.

The JSPL has a three million tonne steel plant in Raigarh, some 220 km from state capital Raipur, while it is planning to set up a 2,400 MW coal-fired power plant in the same district. A public hearing was held May 8 amid uproar from the environment activists.

In his written complaint, Chouhan alleged that Agrawal had exerted pressure on the company to pay Rs. 5 crore to avoid any uproar during the public hearing. The complaint named two Congress leaders - Bajrang Agrawal and Murari Gupta - as witnesses. Agrawal had asked both the leaders to fix the deal of Rs.5 crore, Chouhan said.

“The NGO convener had not been arrested as police were investigating the matter,” Raigarh’s Superintendent of Police Rahul Sharma told IANS over phone.

JSPL executive director A.K. Mukherji said that the company was forced to take action as the NGOs had crossed all limits in the name of environment protection. “We were running out of patience and were propelled to send a message not to bow down before extortionists,” he added.

Strongly refuted the charges against him, Agrawal termed them a “conspiracy to put a check on him as I had been protesting against the environment hazards posed by the industries in Raigarh district.”

“The company officials should explain why they took a long time to lodge complaint against me when the public hearing was actually held May 8,” he added.