The Supreme Court has passed tough questions to CBI on why coal fields were allocated to private players without a transparent bidding process, the slow pace of probe as also on missing files.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla in connection with the coal blocks allocation scam.
CBI's 14th FIR in the multi-crore scandal, was lodged in the case against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla as a representative of Aditya Birla Group and his group company, aluminium maker Hindalco.
CBI also chrged the former Coal Secretary P C Parekh on charges of criminal conspiracy and corruption in connection with alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks to Hindalco, for alleged corruption in the allocation of Talabira two coal blocks in Odisha which was allotted to it on November 10, 2005.
The $40 billion (about Rs. 2.45 lakh crore) conglomerate has denied receiving any FIR and refuted allegations of any wrongdoing.The CBI action had an immediate fallout with Hindalco shares dropping in the morning by 1.27 per cent. Some of the other Birla companies were also affected.
The Centre had on August 29 faced the ire of the Supreme Court on missing files on Coalgate and for not sharing information with CBI and was directed to hand over relevant documents within two weeks to the agency which would also probe disappearance of certain vital papers.
Holding that the missing documents are vital for the probe in the scam, the apex court had directed the Coal Ministry to lodge complaint with the CBI if it fails to trace any documents, sought by the agency.
It directed CBI to conclude the probe against all companies, which were allocated coal blocks, by December this year and ordered it to file the status report on this issue by October 22.
Earlier the Congress MP Naveen Jindal and former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao have been accused of alleged cheating and graft by CBI in one of its FIRs in the coal scam.
Besides Jindal and Rao, CBI has also booked companies Jindal Steel and Power Limited and Gagan Sponge which were allotted Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Birbhum, Jharkhand in the year 2008.
INDIA HONEST raises a serious point of order : that all this planned delays and attempts to hide the facts about involvement of political leaders in the Coalgate scam , will lead the Indian economy, which is already down to bottom on investor confidence, to a position of unmanageable damage .
Why can't the Congress government opens up and resolves all the pending investigation in a time bound manner ,so as fresh steps to revive the industries and economy may start, before a bigger doom takes place ?