The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed a fresh status report in a sealed envelop in the Supreme Court on coal block allocation scam giving details of the ongoing probe in which companies, business tycoons and bureaucrats have come under its scanner.
The government has the power to allocate coal blocks to enterprises in specific sectors -- such as power, and iron and steel in particular.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to file remaining five of the six charge sheets by March 28 in the coal block allocation scam, declining to grant more time sought by the agency for this purpose.
The coal-scam has taken an important turn as the Central Bureau of Investigation has charge-sheeted former bureaucrat P C Parakh and industrialist Kumarmangalam Birla. The next big thing is to see that if the coal-blocks allotted, fraudulently, are cancelled or not either by Supreme Court or by the government as pre-emptive action.
A special court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to clarify whether "rule of law" was followed in allocation of coal blocks to top industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla's Hindalco.
Since the court had earlier questioned distribution of mining rights through the screening committee route, experts say the solution worked out would be weighed on the basis of legality.
'Officers have been made the scapegoat for political failure.' 'No effort has been made to find out who scuttled the prime minister's decision to introduce competitive bidding and why and at whose instance.'
The 30-share Sensex ended up 292 points at 29,571 and the 50-share Nifty closed up 75 points at 8,910.
Former top bureaucrats have come out in support of ex-coal secretary P C Parakh, who has been named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the coal blocks allocation scam, warning that harassment of honest officers will erode the government's credibility and stop senior officers from taking decisions.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the summons to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and 5 others by a trial court over the coal scam.
Stepping up attack on Sanjay Baru's book brought out in the midst of Lok Sabha elections, Congress on Tuesday dubbed it as "mother of all plants" and asserted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have the "best of relations".
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the larger interest of the public sector would be fully protected.
Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot intoned, "Recent incidents will certainly dampen business confidence and investment sentiment, both domestic and foreign; and perhaps also negatively affect decision making by bureaucrats and policy makers."
Congress leaders led by Sonia Gandhi marched from the Congress headquarter in New Delhi to the residence of Manmohan Singh to express solidarity with the former prime minister, who has been summoned as accused by a court in a coal scam case.
A change in recommendation in favour of Birla did certainly happen but the question is whether it was a bona fide decision. Jyoti Mukul reports
'Good politics is not just staying in power. You cannot sacrifice everything at the altar of trying to ensure the coalition remains in power.'
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