Confronted with tough questions in the Coalgate, Attorney General GE Vahanvati lost his cool in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
“I don’t carry details in my head. I can’t go on like this every time. Whenever I submit, more questions are put to me. It carries a lot of strain on me,” was how the top law officer reacted when asked to provide details about the exact location, nature of holding, and operational status of 218 coal blocks allotted by the Centre. While 41 were de-allocated, the Court sought details on the allocations under different heads — 77 to Government companies and 100 to private companies.
Relenting, the AG later offered to collect all details required by Court within two weeks. But the bench cold-shouldered the suggestion and instead went on with the hearing. “We will go by your submissions and draw our own conclusions,” the bench of Justices RM lodha, Madan B lokur and Kurian Joseph said.
The Centre’s deposition in the matter irked the bench, which conveyed its displeasure on being kept in the dark about facts relating to coal block allocations. “We are not having details as to which block was allotted to whom and where. We are faced with a difficult problem to decide the legality of allocations. If we ask you something, you say I’m taken by surprise,” the bench remarked.
The Court even admitted during the proceedings, “We are still groping in the dark,” when responding to an application filed by Coal Producers Association. The latter wanted to be heard in the matter as well but were denied by the Court as it felt the question before it was to consider whether allocation process of the Government was transparent and non-arbitrary.
“We are trying to collate facts which are available from the documents you (Centre) have supplied and trying to reconcile them with the submissions made in the PIls. Your affidavit is either silent or does not state something… Till date you filed four affidavits. All affidavits have followed on questions put by us. We find you have not been able to answer our queries,” the bench noted.
The AG defended Centre by suggesting that information sought by Court were not part of case pleading. He also said that said information had to be collected from either States or Central Mine Planning and Design Institute limited (CMPDIl) — authority tasked with identification of coal blocks.