The Supreme Court monitoring the coal block allocation scam has received an application from the NGO Common Cause alleging conflict of interest against a top-ranking Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer supervising the probe into the coal block allocations.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan in his application alleged that CBI Joint Director Vineet Vinayak was supervising the probe into the coal block allocations cleared by the Screening Committee of Coal Ministry of which his own brother-in-law IAS officer UP Singh was a member.
Bhushan alleged that he never disclosed to the Court or the investigating agency to which he belongs about his relationship with Singh, who could possibly have been an accused in the case. According to Bhushan, Singh was under the scanner of CBI since he was involved in several allocations that got clearance from the Screening Committee and were struck down by the Supreme Court in its judgment of August 25, 2014 cancelling 214 coal blocks.
The application, on behalf of NGO Common Cause, demanded the Court to consider the aspect of “conflict of interest” against Vinayak by ordering an inquiry into whether the investigation against the cancelled coal blocks allotted got affected in any manner due to the presence of Singh in the Screening Committee. Bhushan requested the Court to ask senior advocate RS Cheema, the Special Public Prosecutor representing CBI in conducting trial of the coal scam cases, to make an inquiry and assist the Court.
The bench of Justices Madan B lokur, Kurian Joseph and AK Sikri asked CBI counsel and senior advocate Amarendra Saran to take instructions on Bhushan’s application and inform the Court by Monday. Saran said, “Vineet Vinayak is an outstanding officer.” Vinayak is a 1995 batch Sikkim cadre officer who is currently handling the charge as Joint Director of Economic Offences (Zone-1) and is posted in Delhi.
In its judgment cancelling coal blocks, the Supreme Court had noted several irregularities in the decisions taken by the Screening Committee. Dealing with the meetings of the Committee held during the relevant period when Singh was a member, the Court flagged serious flaws in the decision-making process.
For instance, the judgment records, “The Screening Committee, as a matter of fact, did not select eight companies which were not recommended by the Ministry of Power but selected eleven companies which were not recommended by Ministry of Power.” Further, the Court points out, “Some of the companies which had no recommendation by the State government were recommended by the Screening Committee.” The Court found no discussion on merits of the beneficiary companies nor did the minutes of the meetings contain any particulars of the individual companies.