Coalgate: SC seeks Centre's explanation

The apex court, which turned down the Centre's contention that the petition based on the CAG report which is under the scrutiny of Parliament's PAC cannot be considered, said "the petitioner has sought to point out illegality and there is nothing wrong in it."

A bench comprising justices R M Lodha and A R Dave said the prayer seeking a direction for alleged "unconstitutional" and "arbitrary" allocation of coal blocks "requires explanation from you (centre) because it is not the distribution of state's property in small scale but it talks about tons of largesse."

Further, the bench questioned as why the names of politicians and their relatives have cropped up among the alleged illegal allotees of coal blocks in which the policy of "competitive bidding" formulated by the government in 2004 was not followed.

The bench rejected Solicitor General Rohinton Nariman's contention that the petition based on the CAG report was "premature" as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi was slated to examine it from September 20 about the correctness of allocation. MORE