Coal news and updates

Former Coal Secretary P C Parakh to be quizzed by CBI on Thursday

Former Coal Secretary P C Parakh, booked for allegedly abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco, will be appearing before CBI for questioning on Thursday.

The CBI served a fresh summon to the former bureaucrat for appearing on May one as he had expressed his inability to appear on April 25.

Parakh said that he would be appearing before the agency on May one. "I have received a notice and I will be appearing for questioning on that date," he said.

The 69-year-old former bureaucrat, who retired as Coal Secretary in December 2005, has been accused of abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco, a company of Aditya Birla Group.

CBI had last year registered a case against Parakh, Birla, besides unnamed officials of Hindalco and the Coal Ministry.

The agency alleged that during 2005, these persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and the then public servant (Parakh) abused his position and showed undue favour to the Odisha-based industry in allocation of Talabira II and Talabira III coal blocks.

The move to quiz Parakh comes after former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and the Prime Minister's Advisor T K A Nair were questioned by CBI.

Parakh was in news recently after release of his book on coal blocks allocation in which he had questioned the rationale of the CBI to name him or Chairman of Aditya Birla group of companies Kumar Manglam Birla.

He also questioned the decision-making of the agency chief in not naming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an accused as the Coal Ministry was under Singh's direct charge when Talabira-II coal block in Odhisa was given to Hindalco.

Source: PTI