Hindalco Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla on Friday defended himself and the entire Aditya Birla Group in the coal scam and said the company has done no wrong and he is not worried about the fallout on the group’s application for a bank licence.
Birla said this after meeting Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Revenue Secretary Sumit Bose in the North Block on Friday.
“As of now, I am not worried about it. There is nothing wrong (that) has been done, so why should one worryIJ” he said.
Birla was speaking publicly for the first time after the CBI named him in an FIR in the case. Birla said he discussed the FIR with Chidambaram.
“I obviously brought this up with the FM. There were so many other things to talk about. Work goes on. We are in so many other industries. There are so many other things to discuss with him,” the noted industrialist said.
Meanwhile, leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray questioned the rationale behind lodging an FIR against KM Birla and former Coal Secretary Parekh, while leaving out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who took the final decision on allotment of coal blocks.
Jaitley claimed the FIR against the industrialist and former bureaucrat sends a “very, very adverse” signal that investors and civil servants will face investigation for irregularities, while the “competent authority” in the case, the Prime Minister who held the coal portfolio, “will go scot-free”.