The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday, 8 October 2026, ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the loss of ₹727.67 crore from provident fund money belonging to coal company employees, after the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO) invested ₹1,300 crore in Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) — a housing finance company that subsequently went bankrupt. The order was passed by a division bench headed by Chief Justice M.S. Sonak while hearing a public interest litigation filed by the Coal Employee Welfare Association.

Background: How the Loss Occurred

The CMPFO, which manages retirement savings for workers of coal companies across India, had parked ₹1,300 crore in DHFL. When DHFL collapsed under a mountain of debt and fraud allegations, the fund was unable to recover a substantial portion of its investment, resulting in a verified loss of ₹727.67 crore.

Critically, the petition alleged that warnings about DHFL's deteriorating financial health were raised as early as 24 June 2019 by the fund's own managers — State Bank of India (SBI) and UTI — who reportedly flagged the risk and advised that the investment be withdrawn without delay. No timely action was taken, according to the petitioner.

The Delay That Cost Workers Crores

Nearly six months after the initial warning, on 20 December 2019, the CMPFO held a meeting in which a proposal was finally passed to exit the DHFL investment. By then, the damage had already crystallised. Almost two years later, on 22 November 2021, an investment-related sub-committee of the CMPFO board tabled a proposal to write off the ₹727.67 crore — a move employees formally opposed.

This is not a simple case of market risk: the petition specifically alleges that decision-makers sat on explicit, dated warnings and failed to act. That allegation of culpable inaction is at the heart of the CBI referral.

What the Court Took Note Of

The High Court took serious note of a separate procedural concern: that even before a departmental inquiry report against then Coal Secretary Animesh Bharti — who faces departmental proceedings in connection with the matter — had been received, the CMPFO filed an affidavit before the court giving a clean chit to its own officials. The bench found this premature and problematic.

The Coal India Board of Directors had also proposed levying a cess of ₹10 per tonne on coal production as a mechanism to recoup the lost funds — a proposal that effectively would have passed the burden of institutional mismanagement onto production operations.

What the CBI Will Now Examine

With the High Court disposing of the petition after ordering the CBI probe, investigators will now scrutinise three key questions: the procedures followed when deciding to invest such a large sum in DHFL; the reasons for the prolonged delay in withdrawing funds despite documented warnings from SBI and UTI; and accountability for the ₹727.67 crore loss ultimately borne by coal workers' retirement savings.

The petitioner, represented by Advocate Anil Kumar Singh, had sought both a CBI investigation and full recovery of the lost amount. The court has accepted the probe demand; the question of recovery will depend on what investigators uncover.

Wider Context

The DHFL collapse was one of India's largest non-banking financial company (NBFC) failures, triggering losses across mutual funds, insurance entities, and provident fund bodies. The CMPFO's exposure to DHFL has been a subject of controversy for years, but Thursday's judicial order marks the first time a formal CBI investigation has been mandated into the fund's specific investment decisions. For the hundreds of thousands of coal workers whose retirement security depends on CMPFO, the CBI probe represents a long-awaited step toward accountability.