Coal news and updates

Coal scam: SC likely to pronounce verdict today

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce it verdict Monday on petitions which seeks quashing of coal blocks allocated during the previous UPA regime.

A bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha has examined the allegations about alleged irregularities in the allocation of around 194 coal blocks without following proper guidelines.

The coal blocks were alloted in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh to private companies and parties bewteen 2004 to March 2011.

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has decided to file a closure report in the coal block allocation scam involving Kumar Mangalam Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh after a 10-month probe with the agency stating that they could not find any evidence in this matter.

In a case filed against the two in October last year, the CBI said it found there was no "quid pro quo" on the part of Parakh and that there was no wrongdoing in allocation of coal blocks to Hindalco.

During its verdict Monday, the Supreme Court is also expected to deliver its findings on whether the guidelines contain inbuilt mechanism to ensure that "does not lead to distribution of largesse unfairly in the hands of few private companies" and those were strictly followed and whether by allocation of coal blocks, the objectives of the policy have been realised.

Apart from Chief Justice R M Lodha, the bench comprising of justices M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph has been monitoring the CBI probe into the scam.

The apex court on September 14, 2012 had for the first time issued notice on the PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma and later an NGO, Common Cause and other public spirited persons joined him in the matter which saw CBI facing tough time and government getting pulled up for alleged interference in the probe.

Source: zeenews.india.com/With PTI Inputs