Opposition takes on govt over missing coal files

Says efforts are being made to mislead the country

The opposition parties on Tuesday attacked the government over the missing coal files and said efforts were being made to mislead the country.

Opposition leader Arun Jaitley demanded to know from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha who would take "moral responsibility" over the missing files.

"There has been an attempt to mislead this house. It (the case) has every conceivable element of bad governance as it involves fraud, contempt of court, breach of privilege, conflict of interest and destruction of evidence," said Jaitley.

He said there was a notion that the missing files won't see the "light of the day" as the names of important people were involved in the alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal mines.

"Has the government registered any report, started booking the guilty and efforts taken to retrieve the documents," he asked.

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told Parliament on August 23 that a total of 189 documents related to the coal block allocations were missing.

Communist Party of India-Marxist's Sitaram Yechury said the government was staying away from registering a formal complaint regarding the missing files.

"The government (says) a committee has been formed to look into the missing files. It has been a week ... and we don't know what that committee has done," said Yechury.

"Why is the government not registering a FIR in the case? This increases the bar of suspicion that something is being hidden," he said.

The Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), AIADMK and Trinamool Congress asked the government to clarify to which time period did the missing files belong.

"Why strict action is not taken against officials who were responsible for losing the files?" asked BSP chief Mayawati.