Coal scam: SC raps govt for not giving vital data to CBI

Says probe was handicapped due to this

The Supreme Court on Wednesday hardened its stance on the coal allocation scam when it asked the government to produce the details of the decision to grant 164 blocks and blamed it for not providing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the necessary inputs for inquiry.

The court read some parts of the CBI status report and remarked the agency was handicapped in its probe because the government was not providing it with essential details such as the regulations, minutes of the 36 sittings of the screening committee, and the reasons for changing the recommendations.

"There are a lot of infirmities and deficiencies; the basic documents are not available to the CBI; it is all the subjective decisions of the screening committee," the judges remarked, after reading some parts of the report. Although the report was filed in a sealed cover, the judges read some parts of it in the open court and made severe remarks against the government, represented by Attorney General G E Vahanvati. "The CBI is struggling, you have not produced anything," the bench headed by R M Lodha observed in a three-hour long rap of the government. "The more we read the report, the more we are surprised."

According to the passages read out, the details provided to the CBI were sketchy, "non-speaking", and indicated lack of transparency in allocations. The details of the decision-making process are not recorded in the minutes and, therefore, it is not possible to recall now, it is stated.

The attorney general was asked to file a detailed explanation on these deficiencies, which he agreed to do at the next hearing. The court will hear the case next week. The government has been asked to justify the grant of 164 licences within four weeks. The government had produced 13 volumes of material on Wednesday but it did not contain what the judges wanted.

Meanwhile, the CBI counsel and additional solicitor-general Siddharth Luthra withdrew from the case. Earlier, senior lawyer U U Lalit was representing the CBI.

He had also quit following the allegation that he had represented the Jindal group earlier, raising the issue of a conflict of interest. The CBI will now have to look for another senior lawyer to represent it next week.

The CBI has raised the issue of sanction to prosecute guilty officials. It had also pleaded that it had to share some details with political authorities in the process of seeking sanction. This was against the court order of May 8, which had insisted that no political authorities shall be given any information regarding the scam while the investigation was in progress. On the CBI's plea, the court asked the response of the government.

The petitioners, L M Sharma and Prashant Bhushan, had submitted that no sanction was necessary as the court itself had ordered investigation and prosecution. In earlier cases also, there was no sanction necessary if the investigation was ordered by the court. The 'single-directive' formula, which insisted on sanction from higher authorities, was necessary only on ordinary corruption cases, Bhushan argued.

The court also asked the CBI to file its response on the question of autonomy for the investigative agency, which is a core issue in the coalgate case. Last week, the government had filed a detailed report on the action it proposed to take, to grant autonomy to the CBI.