Armed with a letter written by Manoj Jayaswal to allot 26 percent shares of AMR Iron and Steel Private Limited, a Jayaswal Group company, "free of cost" to the Lokmat Group of Congress MP Vijay Darda, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may soon summon Darda and his son Devendra for interrogation in the coal blocks allotted to the company with their help.

The letter also implicates coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal as the letter written by Manoj to his father heading the group states: "Further I urge that a suitable time be communicated to Shri Sriprakash for settlement of ownership of 14 percent shares of AMR. Any delay would only raise doubts in the minds of external parties which is not welcome." The minister has denied getting the offer to arbitrate, but the CBI may quiz him as well.

The CBI will be questioning Darda and his son Devendra, who has been named in the FIR against AMR, on what efforts they made to get the coal block allocations to the Jayaswal as also the Congress MP's links with Santosh Bagrodia, who was a minister of state for coal during the period and whether he was also present in the minister's chamber on July 18, 2008 when representatives of AMR attending a meeting.

Jayaswal's letter nails Darda as it says, "AMR has been allocated a coal block because of the efforts of the Lokmat Groups and hence commitments made have to be honoured....."

Out of the seven companies so far booked by the CBI for fraudulently securing the captive coal blocks, three are associated with Jayswals and Dardas: AMR, Nagpur, Jawaharlal Darda Yavatmal Energy Ltd, Nagpur and JAS Infrastructure Capital Pvt Limited, Kolkata.

AMR promoted by the Jayswals -- Manoj, Arvind Kumar and Ramesh -- allocated five coal blocks on the date of application but fraudulently concealed factors. The CBI found an inquiry initiated by the coal ministry found that the group companies were not entitled for allocation since they had been given allocations earlier too, but the officials did not pursue the inquiry and allowed allocations for which they will face charge of criminal conspiracy.