Centre may de-allocate 30 permits given after 2005, Vahanvati tells apex court
The Centre has admitted that “something went wrong” in the coal blocks’ allocation. Attorney-General GE Vahanvati informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that a decision to de-allocate 30 out of 32 allocations post-2005 will be taken by the Centre by next week.
Vahanvati, who is defending the Centre in a set of three PIls challenging the coal blocks’ allocation process by the Screening Committee set up by the Coal Ministry, admitted what was widely believed and alleged. “We took decision in good faith but something has gone wrong,” he said.
He has suggested the Government to consider de-allocation of 30 out of 32 coal blocks where mining lease was yet to be issued. The decision is pending with the Central Ministers.
The submission by A-G followed a suggestion made by the apex court on Wednesday to de-allocate coal blocks irrespective of the investment put in by allottees. “We wanted to achieve a lot, we haven’t achieved that…In hindsight, we can say something has gone wrong and some correction is required to be done,” the A-G said.
In the circumstances that prevailed during 1991-1992, the A-G explained that the decision taken by the Centre was in the national interest to make available coal to increase power generation. “What we did was in national interest. Ideally we should have formed a national policy. Something better could have been evolved in the national interest,” the A-G said in support of his admission. The Bench of Justices RM lodha, Madan B lokur and Kurian Joseph said that the whole thing could have been done in a far better manner. Vahanvati accepted this view and told the court that the stand of the Centre on his opinion will be made clear by next week.
There is more in store for the Centre to consider as the Maharashtra Government on Thursday filed an affidavit in the apex court announcing its intention to auction three of the allotted coal blocks where the State is yet to issue a mining lease. A total of four blocks were allocated by Screening Committee to private companies at Majra, Kosar Dongargaon, Khapa (and Extension), and Warora. Only with respect to the first block, the State had issued lease in 2009.
In regard to the three blocks where mining lease had not been executed, the letter categorically stated, “All such cases should be put to auction under the Auction by Competitive Bidding of Coal Mines Rules 2012.” It even proposed an alternative to de-allocate the blocks. Considering the fact that the project proponents may have already made huge investments, Maharashtra suggested, “In such cases, the Ministry of Coal should evolve a system of collecting premium before the execution of mining lease with such allottees on the basis of premium which accrues from the auction of similar coal mines.”
With States accusing the Centre of dominating decisions on coal blocks’ allocation leaving no scope for denying the allottees cherry-picked by Screening Committee, the A-G stuck to his stand that the letter of allotment issued to an allottee was not a bankable document. “Merely an allocation letter does not confer rights as regards identification,” he said, explaining that the letter cannot be enforced in a court of law to claim mining lease. But the Bench felt that the letter of allotment did not specify the coal block alone but the person to whom it should be allotted. “This stage of the allocation process should be at an intermediate stage after certain procedural aspects are examined,” the Bench told A-G.