CBI to close inquiry in certain coal blocks

Senior CBI official says of all the 195 coal blocks under probe no instance of criminality has been found in several allocations

Central Bureau of Investigation is likely to close its probe in some of the coal block allocations. The agency will inform the Supreme Court on this matter on November 26.

A senior CBI official said that of all the 195 coal blocks under probe no instance of criminality has been found in several allocations and therefore the enquiry could now be closed.

CBI would wait for the directions from the apex court on its future course of action regarding such coal blocks. So far, CBI has registered 14 cases under three preliminary enquiries.

The agency is looking into allocation between 2006 and 2009, allocation between 1993 and 2004, and projects given under government dispensation scheme.  

The agency has also finished its probe in at least four cases in the coal scam. CBI is in the process of seeking opinion from the legal department and its internal officers on this matter to finalise the chargesheets in these cases. CBI has not filed a single chargesheet in the coal scam till now.

The agency stated that due to some of the missing coal files, it would be difficult to file chargesheets in certain cases. CBI has registered two preliminary enquiries into the missing coal block allocation files.

A senior CBI official however also told Business Standard that some of the missing files have been found by the coal ministry and handed over to the CBI. He did not divulge the details of the files that have been found. “These are old cases and it is possible that some files could go missing. It is not necessary that these things are done intentionally,” he said.

In a recently concluded CBI conference on combating corruption, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has criticized CBI for alleging criminal misconduct in decisions taken with no ill intention and within the prevailing policy.

Singh said such approach was “flawed and excessive.” He said that since policy making is a complex and multilayered process, “it would be to appropriate for a police agency to sit in judgment over policy formulation, without any evidence of malafide.”