Coal scam: CBI to file fresh status report before Supreme Court

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will on Monday file a detailed fresh status report before the Supreme Court on its probe into the alleged irregularities in coal blocks allocation.

The status report is on the progress made in the probe by the agency by December 31. The CBI had been asked by the Supreme Court to probe all allotments made since 1993.

Though the report will be submitted in a sealed cover, sources say the report is likely to say that the CBI has completed its investigations in six FIRs out of 16 registered so far.

These FIRs pertain to the period when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in charge of the coal ministry.

The report is likely to say that in certain coal block allocations, no criminality has been found and accordingly, these can be taken out of the probe and that all missing files on the coal scam have been found.

The CBI has been probing the coal block allocation scam, in which it has been alleged that for several years, the government gave away mining licences arbitrarily, without a transparent bidding process, at the cost of thousands of crores to the country. The opposition has repeatedly targetted the Prime Minister, who was in charge of the Coal Ministry between November 2006 and May 2009.