The CBI is likely to question Prime Minister’s advisor TKA Nair next week in connection with the coal block allocation scam. The move comes nearly one-and-a-half years after the agency initiated the probe into the coal scam.
The agency is set to question Nair before wrapping up investigations into the coal block allocation by April end. The Supreme Court has directed the agency to file final reports in six cases and complete the probe in 10 other cases by the end of next month.
Sources said the agency is finalising charsgesheet in five cases and they would be filed soon. Nair is likely to be examined as a witness in connection with the allocation of Odisha-based Talabira coal block to Hindalco. Hindalco was awarded the coal block even after being rejected by the Screening Committee.
The only material change that took place between rejection of Hindalco’s application by the Screening Committee and allotment were two letters routed to the then Coal Secretary PC Parakh through the
PMO and his personal meeting with Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group.
The agency is also likely to quiz Nair on some other coal block allocations especially those allotted when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was holding the charge of the Coal Ministry.
The agency needs to seek Nair’s clarification as it is going to wrap up its probe and inform the Supreme Court about the outcome of the case.
The CBI has already questioned two former PMO officials — Vini Mahajan and Ashish Gupta — who were posted in the PMO between 2006 and 2009. During that period, the Prime Minister was handling charge of the Coal Ministry.
Vini Mahajan, a 1987-batch IAS officer from Punjab cadre, was a Director with the PMO during the period and has now been repatriated to the State. Gupta, an IPS-officer of 1989-batch from Uttar Pradesh cadre, who was the vigilance officer in the PMO, has also moved to his cadre State.
In all, the CBI has filed 16 FIRs which included those against AMR Iron and Steel, JlD Yavatmal Energy, Vini Iron and Steel Udyog, JAS Infrastructure Capital Pvt ltd, Grace Industries, Jindal Steel and Power, Rathi Steel and Power ltd, Jharkhand Ispat, Green Infrastructure, Kamal Sponge, Pushp Steel, Hindalco, BlA Industries, Castron Technologies and Castron Mining and Nav Bharat Power Private limited.
These FIRs were registered after the agency probed three preliminary enquiries related to coal block allocation between 2006 and 2009, 1993 and 2004 and projects given under Government dispensation scheme.