New Delhi: Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and seven others were summoned as accused in a coal block allocation scam case by a special court here on Tuesday.

Besides Koda, the court summoned as accused two retired IAS officers, former Coal Secretary H C Gupta, former Jharkhand Chief Secretary Ashok Kumar Basu and five others, including two serving public servants, Basant Kumar Bhattacharya and Bipin Bihari Singh, in the case pertaining to allocation of coal blocks to Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd in Jharkhand's Rajhara town.

The company, along with its director Vaibhav Tulsyan and one Vijay Joshi, has also been summoned as accused by Special Judge Bharat Parashar, who took cognisance of the CBI's charge sheet in the case. The court summoned all the accused to appear before it on February 18.

The accused have been named in the charge sheet for offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case pertains to allocation of coal blocks to Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd in Jharkhand's Rajhara town in which its directors and unknown public servants of the Union Coal Ministry, the Jharkhand government and others were made accused in the FIR lodged by CBI in September 2012.

The charge sheet was filed two months after the court had returned CBI's final report in the matter, observing that the agency had failed to give any plausible explanation to its queries.