Nailing the Government lie, the CBI told the Supreme Court on Monday that the procedure followed in the allocation of 53 coal blocks was “flawed” and “arbitrary” and the misleading financial claims of the beneficiary companies were not verified. While an embarrassed Centre said the CBI was not the last word, the SC asked the probe agency to dig into the conspiracy angle and not share any finding with the political executive.
The CBI submission is a big blow to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was the Coal Minister during the better part of the scam period.
The PM will now have to face uncomfortable questions since his Government has all along maintained that the Screening Committee under the Ministry of Coal that allocated 218 coal blocs had scrupulously followed all guidelines.
While examining two PIls demanding cancelling coal blocks’ allocations, the SC Bench read out portions from the CBI status report, which said that no system was in place to verify vital facts and claims of appellant companies, their financial strength and capabilities. “The way allocations were made prima facie shows no uniformity or rationale and being arbitrarily done,” stated the status report of CBI filed in a sealed cover.
The SC Bench of Justices RM lodha, J Chelameswar and Madan lokur confronted the Centre with the new revelations and questioned the previous affidavit filed by the Coal Ministry.
The affidavit had said: “The Screening Committee assessed the applications having regard to the matters such as techno-economic feasibility of the end-use projects, status of preparedness to set up the end-use projects, past track record in execution of projects, financial and technical capabilities of the applicant companies, recommendations of the State Governments and the Administrative Ministry concerned.”
However, the status report of the CBI pointed out that some companies obtained licences by “misrepresenting” their financial strength and capabilities.
“A new dimension has been added by the CBI status report. Assuming that the Centre allotted according to the rule, but the CBI has found those rules lacked rationale.” The observation gave fillip to the demand by the petitioners NGO Common Cause and advocate Ml Sharma to seek cancellation of coal blocs.
The frustration of the Centre became evident as Attorney General GE Vahanvati said, “CBI is not the last word”. He challenged the criminal conspiracy angle being probed at the instance of a complaint by a BJP MP and said, “Every policy of the Government is being challenged on one ground or the other.”
But the SC Bench cautioned Vahanvati from questioning the conspiracy theory.
“None of your comments must influence the ongoing probe by CBI. If you are challenging the very conspiracy angle being examined, that may directly or indirectly affect the ongoing investigation,” the judges added. He asked Vahanvati to file an affidavit before the next date of hearing on April 30 on what uniform criteria was adopted to select or reject 2000 odd applications and to clarify no “pick and choose” method was adopted to select 150 applicants.
To ensure that the CBI investigation is kept insulated from Government influence, the Bench asked CBI counsel Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Harin Raval whether any part of the investigation was shared with the political executive. He stated that the reports were vetted at the level of Director CBI and no portion of the report was shared with executive. The SC Bench directed that this position should continue in future. The probe agency was asked to file a fresh status report before the next date of hearing.