The right vests with States, Supreme Court tells Centre
The Supreme Court on Thursday made it clear to the Centre that it had no power to allocate coal blocks to private companies and sought legal explanation from Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati for making the allotments.
A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and J. Chelameswar told the AG that there was absolutely no power given to the Centre under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957. It was vested only with the States.
The Bench was hearing a petition filed by a group of prominent citizens and Common Cause, a non-governmental organisation, seeking cancellation of the allocation of captive coal blocks made from 1993 and a probe by a special investigation team. The petitioners included T.S.R. Subramanian, former Cabinet Secretary; N Gopalaswami, former Chief Election Commissioner; Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Government of India; Admiral (retd.) R.H. Tahiliani; Sushil Tripathi, former Secretary, Government of India; and Admiral (retd.) L. Ramdas.
They said that according to the CAG’s conservative estimates, the allocation between 2004 and 2010 caused a windfall gain of Rs. 1.86 lakh crore to private companies, making it a bigger scandal than the ‘2G scam’. There was a related loss to the public exchequer. “Various political and commercial vested interests joined forces to block competitive bidding [auction].”
A petition by advocate M.L. Sharma was tagged with this plea.
The Bench wanted to know from the AG whether the Centre derived any power to allocate coal blocks to private companies under the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act. Justice Lodha told Mr. Vahanvati: “You are required to give a lot of legal explanation. The question is: does the Centre have power under the MMDR Act and does it have the power to undermine the entire statutory mechanism? Can you override the statutory provisions of the Act? It is very doubtful, legally perhaps.”
Mr. Vahanvati said he did not want to give off-the-cuff answers. “I need time to go into these issues.”
Justice Lodha told the AG: “From your affidavit itself, it appears that minerals and mining lease has to be executed by the State and not by the Centre. It strikes at the root of all allocations.” Referring to counsel Prashant Bhushan’s submission that the Coal Secretary had filed an affidavit on how the blocks were decided by a Screening Committee, Justice Lodha observed: “This seems to be extra legal.”
Earlier, Mr. Bhushan wanted the CBI to file a status report on the probe conducted so far after it had registered three preliminary enquiries on coal allocations.
“Strange statement”
When Additional Solicitor-General Harin Raval expressed reservations about sharing the CBI probe details, Justice Lodha said: “ This is a very strange statement on your part. This is not the first case and probably will not be the last case in which the Supreme Court will be monitoring the investigations.”
The ASG assured the court that nothing would be kept back and detailed information of the probe would be provided. The CBI had already registered 12 First Information Reports and a comprehensive investigation was on. The probe would be completed in four months and a status report would be filed.
The Bench posted further hearing to March 12.
Keywords: Coal block allocation, Supreme Court, coal scam, coal block allocation scam, Mines and Minerals Act, UPA government
What kinds of act are legal and what are not is just a matter of fact that who does the act. By the way, I am reading first time that the government had followed illegal procedure in allocation of coal blocks. After reading it, I am bounded to think that law makers in the parliament also follow acts that are agianst the law...However they are lawmaker of our cuntry.
The court also directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not
to share information of its probe into the scam with the “political
executive” (central government).
What an expression of confidence in the integrity of the "political
executive" of the day! Only last week , Dr.Singh, with a rare and solid expression of self confidence, spoke about the 'work' and 'performance' of the government led by him and sent a message to the nation that "we will be back
again", obviously implying the formation of next government under the
congress leadership after the next general elections.It remains to be
seen whether Indian voters are waiting to fulfill the
expectations of Dr.Singh or going to demonstrate their understanding
of the potency of this particular directive of the apex court by
voting out the congress party!
It should go the same way as 2G Cancellation.
What has Dr. Clean got out of this?
The very fact that the rut being investigated goes as far as 1993 gives credence to the notion that mechanisms for corrupt practices were set or kept fully engaged across the party lines... as greed and credulity have no favorites.
As Supreme Court goes through this Pandora’s box (coal-gate investigation), let it unravel all of the sordid nexuses deeply entrenched within the labyrinth of our “democracy”… and book them for good. And let it rule in favor of supporting Jan Lokpal or similar constitutional frame-work to allow some resistance to incessant looting of the wealth of our nation.
Freedom from British Raj was a long and hard fought struggle… We have one cooking for long time and bigger one here at hand, for anyone who cares enough to see the bleed.
The legal interpretation can be right, but giving the states the right to allocate coal and other mineral resources will actually mutliply corruption, going by the iron ore scams allowed by AP, K'taka, Odisha and Goa.
It has become the habit of ruling gentry to indulge in omissions and commissions necessitating judicial intervention and then to condemn "judicial activism".
That said what is the properiety of Manmohan singh to continue in office when his ministry was the one which did all these "unlawful" allocations to companies.
The secular media will keep its mouth shut on this issue.
Greater regard for practical and personal convenience rather than the
plethora of largely iniquitous laws they create has ever been the hall
mark of India's ruling (looting) elites.
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