The Supreme Court will pronounce on Monday the fate of coal block allocations made during the UPA regime after a set of PIls had demanded it to be set aside on account of grave irregularities.
A bench of Chief Justice RM lodha, Justices Madan lokur and Kurian Joseph, which is still monitoring investigation into the scam, will pronounce whether the procedure to allocate around 194 coal blocks by the Government, and in particular the Screening Committee under the Coal Ministry, was as per the existing guidelines and rules of fair play.
Two petitions filed by NGO Common Cause and advocate Ml Sharma highlighted how coal blocks were issued to persons close to the Coal Minister or in some cases even to undeserving persons at a throwaway price. Similar to 2G allocations, it was argued that such brazen disregard to natural resources cost public exchequer lakhs of crores of rupees.
The coal blocks in question were allotted in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh between 2004 and 2011. Allocations made between 2006 and 2009 attracted most attention as former PM Manmohan Singh also held Coal portfolio during this period when majority irregularities were detected.
The PIls came subsequent to a report by CAG that detected irregularities and estimated the loss on account of loss caused due to irregular coal allocations at over Rs 1.64 lakh crores. The Centre argued that it was premature for the Court to examine the petitions as the Public Accounts Committee was seized of the CAG report.