Why is coal ministry blocking

Slams It For Giving Incomplete Answers Despite Many Reminders

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN 

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday put the coal ministry in the dock for stonewalling CBI probe into the coal block allotment scam by failing to provide complete answers to important questions posed by investigating officers at a time when the agency feels many coal block allocations were “absolutely arbitrary”.
    Abench of Justices R M Lodha, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph said, “On one hand, your (coal ministry’s) joint secretary wants to see the CBI’s draft investigation status report meant for the court and on the other hand, the ministry does not furnish information which the CBI requires.”
    Calling on attorney general G E Vahanvati and solicitor general Mohan Parasaran to impress upon the coal ministry that it was in their interest that full cooperation was extended to the CBI, the bench said, “You (the ministry) cannot play hide and seek with the court. Otherwise we will ensure that all answers are given.”
    The bench was relentless in its caustic observations. “This is a voluminous exercise and it requires scrutiny of a large number of documents. The CBI has indicated (in its status reports) that a lot of things are not in conformity with the policy and rules and regulations. Its perception and prima facie view is very firm that the coal allocation is absolutely arbitrary. You (the AG) will deal with it in your own way to explain how things were done properly. But the CBI is very firm about its view,” the bench said.
    Vahvanvati replied, “The new coal secretary (Sanjay Srivastava) is clear that whatever document is there must be given to the CBI. What is not there, the CBI can draw inference for the absence of it.” This gave a perception that though the present coal secretary was all forcooperating with the CBI investigation, the stonewalling was probably done during his predecessor’s (Alok Perti’s) time.
    “The CBI is relying on a physical verification report of July 2012 to tell us that there was no evidence of coal allotted between 2006 and 2009 being made operational,” the bench said, prompting petitioner ML Sharma to seek a stay on mining activity in the coal blocks allotted in these three years. The bench said it would consider the request after getting all information. However, the court clarified that it was not looking into cases of individual wrongdoing.