CBI questions Hindalco officials, Parakh next, Birla unlikely yet

CBI had registered a case naming 46-year-old Birla, Parakh and unknown officials of Hindalco and coal ministry last year under various sections

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is still indecisive on whether it will call industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla for questioning, even as the agency is just two weeks away from the deadline of completing the coal probe. CBI has been questioning senior executives of Hindalco for the past three days in connection with the case registered against the company for the allocation of the TalabiraII coal block, but an official at the agency said Birla was unlikely to be called "anytime soon". However, the main accused in the case former coal secretary P C Parakh, who's in the news for his book Crusader or Conspirator that was critical of CBI, will be examined next week, the official confirmed.

CBI has maintained that the investigations in the case are in the last leg and final decision on the case will be taken after examining all the accused. The Supreme Court asked for a status report from the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate on the ongoing investigation on May 7. The report will update the details by April 30. CBI had set a deadline for itself to finish the probe by the end of April in all the coal FIRs registered so far.

CBI had lodged an FIR against Parakh, Birla, unknown officials and Hindalco last October as part of it coal block allocation probe. Besides attacking CBI for "witch-hunt", Parakh's book points fingers at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for being ineffective in managing the ministers. The book said CBI is "either outright incompetent or is playing a deeper game which I do not understand."

To that, CBI director Ranjit Sinha said a former bureaucrat should not preach CBI on law and its probe methods. Parakh lashed out at Sinha in the book for not naming the Prime Minister in the FIR. He said if CBI had the "courage of conviction, he (Sinha)ought to have named the Prime Minister in the FIR."

So far, CBI has registered 18 FIRs in the coal block allocation scam. Of these, it has filed chargesheet in two cases - against Navbharat Power and AMR Iron and Steel and filed closure reports in another two cases against Vikash Metals and Kamal Sponge and Power.