Coal news and updates

he Centre on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to make states parties to a case over alleged irregularities in coal block allocations, saying the legal rights for blocks were created only after the "states signed the lease". 

 

Allocation by the Centre is mere identification, Attorney General of India G E Vahanvati told a three-judge bench that is hearing two public interest litigations seeking en masse cancellation of all coal block allocations after 1993. 

 

"It does not create any legal rights," he argued, urging the court to issue notices to state governments that signed the lease for allocation with government bodies and private parties. 

 

Reacting to his submission, a bench comprising Justices RM Lodha, Madan B Lokur and Kurien Joseph said that if to crystallise those rights further consequential action had to be taken by the state governments, it would have to hear the states too. 

 

The AG's arguments came in the wake of a court comment expressing dissatisfaction with the government records produced in the case. 

 

"The facts (as shown in the court records) are either incomplete or contradictory," Justice Lodha said. 

 

The comments were made after the government produced records showing that coal blocks where public money had been invested had been allocated to private parties, contradicting an earlier claim by the AG that all the blocks allocated to private parties were virgin "green field" areas. 

 

Source: ET