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Coal block: SC admits plea against Naveen

The Supreme Court on Wednesday admitted a petition seeking action against chief minister Naveen Patnaik for his alleged role in the controversial Talabira II coal block allocation.

A lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court, N K Sahoo, filed the plea alleging that the controversy on inclusion of Hindalco in the Talabira-II coal block started because of the letter written by Patnaik to the Centre in August 2005, supporting Hindalco's claim to the coal block.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former coal secretary P C Parakh and Hindalco chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla were summoned by the CBI in the case. "The former Prime Minister had taken a decision on allocation of Talabira-II coal block to Hindalco following the representation made by the Odisha government. Surprisingly, Patnaik has been kept out of the purview of CBI probe. He was also not summoned in the case by the trial court," alleged the petitioner's counsel, Suresh Tripathy.

Tripathy further said there are concrete evidences against Patnaik that he is the main culprit. "The division bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan admitted our petition today and tagged it with the special leave petitions filed by Singh, Birla and four other persons in the case. All the cases will be heard together," said Tripathy.

The CBI court had summoned former prime minister Singh, who also served as the then coal minister, Birla and four others for illegal allocation of Talabira II coal block in Odisha to Hindalco. The trial court had observed that due to the illegal allocation Hindalco earned huge profits and state-owned Neyveli Lignite Corporation sustained losses.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com