JUDGMENT

Chelameswar, J.-This appeal arises out of a judgment of the High Court of Calcutta dated 23rd November, 2001 in Writ Petition No. 352/2001. The appellants herein were the respondents in the above-mentioned Writ Petition.

2. An FIR came to be registered on 15th November, 2000 in the Delhi Special Police Establishment, Ranchi Branch in Crime No. RC 13(A)/2000 (R) under Section 120B read with Section 420 IPC and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against nine accused of whom the first accused was the Coal Controller at the relevant point of time. The next five accused were the officers of Central Coalfields Limited (hereinafter `CCL'. for short), which is a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (hereinafter `CIL', for short). Accused No.9 is a Private Limited Company (hereinafter `private company', for short) and accused Nos. 7 and 8 are the members of the said private company.

3. The sole respondent, Mr. Ramesh Gandhi, is one of the members of the above-mentioned private company and shown to be the seventh accused in the above-mentioned FIR. He filed writ petition No. 352/2001 on the file of the Calcutta High Court praying that the