Hindalco coal block case: CBI files status report in sealed cover

Seeks two weeks to complete probe, requests court not to open the cover until then

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday filed a status report showing its further investigation in the Hindalco coal block allocation matter, allegedly involving industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former coal secretary P C Parakh.

While giving its progress report in the case in a sealed cover, CBI requested the court not to open it until the agency completed its probe in the matter. It sought two more weeks for that.

“The progress report has been filed along with statements of various persons as recorded during further investigation in sealed cover, besides some documents,” Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar said.

The CBI said it had followed the court’s December order asking it to examine and record statements of various former PMO officials, including the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

In December last year, the special court had quashed CBI’s closure report in the case related to the allocation of Talabira-II and -III coal block in Odisha.

The court had sought a fresh probe in the matter and had asked the agency to examine senior government officials. Apart from Singh, the agency quizzed his then principal secretary, T K A Nair and the then private secretary to the PM, B V R Subramanyam.

The agency had recently registered a fresh case against Indal (now Hindalco, an Aditya Birla Group company), and unknown public servants, alleging unauthorised use of coal in the company’s Talabira-I coal block in Odisha.