Former Congress lawmaker Naveen Jindal, an industrialist, has been summoned by a Delhi court in connection with a coal scam case.

Mr Jindal, 47, has been formally charged by the CBI in connection with the alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal mining blocks when the Congress-led UPA was in power.

The court has also issued summons to three more persons and the Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) company, asking them to appear on September 4.

The case is linked to the allocation of coal block to Jindal Steel in Madhya Pradesh.  The CBI alleges that Mr Jindal’s company Jindal Steel and Power Limited colluded with Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao to influence the screening committee that allotted coal blocks, by investing more than two crores.

Mr Jindal’s company, the CBI says, did this in return for mining rights in a Jharkhand block.  Last week, three former coal ministry officials including ex-Secretary HC Gupta were held guilty of corruption by a special CBI court, which said that the illegal deals were not known to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in charge of the coal ministry. ‘

Aspects of non-compliance with rules, said the court, were not known to Dr Singh, who was “kept in the dark” and misled by senior bureaucrats.