Investigation Status

Around 24 private companies are mentioned and some of them have been named accused in the FIRs the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is planning to file in the next few days. “Initial probe suggests that some of these companies made false representations such as having a tie-up with another company that on scrutiny were found to be non-existent, and some were simply ineligible to get captive coal blocks. We will name these companies in our FIRs,” said a senior agency official.

Officials from the state government were also part of the screening committee that was constituted for examining the private companies for the coal allocation. “The screening committee had coal ministry officials, state government officials and the top brass of coal public sector undertakings and their subsidiaries. We have to see how these companies were able to manage such a large screening committee, if at all,” said the official.

The agency reports that the investigators have already sought clarification from these companies and few of them have satisfied CBI investigation about the alleged irregularity that suspected of them. The agency has also observed that most of the companies who are suspected to be beneficiaries of the allocations are in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Since 2004, around 150 coal blocks have been allocated without auction and in this period the Coal Ministry was headed by the PM (in his earlier stint), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren and (now) the Congress MP from Kanpur, Sriprakash Jaiswal. 

CBI had begun this investigation in 2006 on the basis of a complaint forwarded by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). The agency had prepared a list of companies that were allocated coal blocks on the recommendations of their respected state governments during the probe period.

The agency is now investigating on the report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG), which was presented in Parliament recently, which claimed a loss of 1.86 lakh crore to exchequer because the government didn’t auction the coal blocks.