The Supreme Court has set a two-week deadline for the Centre to supply the “missing” files and documents in the coal block allocation scam.
Unhappy over the Centre’s non-cooperation to make available crucial files on the financial health and net worth of companies under the scanner, the Supreme Court (SC) wondered why the Coal Ministry did not lodge any FIR to recover the documents.
The SC got the real picture on the missing files on reading the 117-page status report submitted by the CBI on the progress of its investigation into 11 regular cases and three preliminary enquiries conducted over the past 15 months.
The agency informed the SC that despite several reminders, the Coal Ministry failed to provide crucial documents related to allocation, minutes of Screening Committee meetings, reports on the financial health and net worth of the companies under probe, and letters of recommendation in favour of a private company forwarded by MP Vijay Darda to PM Manmohan Singh.
“Eligibility of companies is the basic issue involved in these cases and criminality has to be assessed in the light of material supplied by you,” observed the bench of Justices RM lodha, Madan lokur and Kurian Joseph.
Pointing to the non-supply of a report by Coal India limited (CIl), which conducted an independent assessment of the financial health of beneficiary companies, the bench said: “On May 1, 2013, the Coal Ministry has admitted that reports of CIl are not available in its records despite best efforts. Four months have passed, have you filed any FIR for the missing official documents or is it an attempt to destroy these reportsIJ We do not expect the Government to act in this manner.”
The SC also slammed the Government for refusing to supply information to the CBI.
“There is no immediate response and when you respond, you do not answer the queries put to you by CBI… Investigation has slowed down due to non-supply of documents considered vital to complete the probe.”
In this regard, the bench quoted from the report that said on August 1, 2013 the CBI asked the Coal Ministry to supply files and documents on 18 coal blocks on a priority basis. “Four weeks are gone and you have not provided them as yet. Then what is priority,” the bench remarked.
Attorney-General GE Vahanvati urged the court to consider giving another opportunity to the Government as the Coal Ministry claimed several of the unsupplied documents had been provided earlier. The SC asked CBI officers to supply a list of required documents to the AG's office within five days and gave two weeks to the Government to provide the same.
In the event of any file or document going missing or untraced, the same would be reported for investigation to CBI, the bench held.
CBI assured SC that once all documents were given, the investigation would be complete by December.
The bench directed CBI to give a status report to it by October 22. However, petitioner Common Cause through its lawyer Prashant Bhushan found it fit for the court to order registration of an FIR, as withholding of files not only resulted in concealing or destruction of evidence but contempt of the court's order of August 6 requiring the Centre to fully cooperate by supplying all documents.
On the question of sanction, the court decided to hear the Centre on September 5 on the submission made by the CBI to do away with requirement of sanction to investigate officers above Joint Secretary's rank in a court-monitored probe.
In addition, the SC also directed the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to inform it about the progress on a CVC complaint in the coal scam requiring States to consent to CBI probe against public servants and PSUs operated by States. So far only Kerala and Jharkhand had given the CBI the go-ahead to proceed against their public servants.