Union Tourism Minister Subodhkant Sahai on Wednesday rubbished the BJP’s allegation that he or his family had influenced the allocation of coal mines to a particular company.
In a statement issued here, he termed the allegations as “concocted and motivated’’ and an attempt to malign his image. Mr. Sahai said the allegations made against him and his family were cleared by the Delhi High Court on May 18, 2010 during the course of hearing a PIL on the subject. “Since the Delhi High Court has cleared all allegations made against me, I have nothing more to say in his in this matter,’’ the statement read.
Mr. Sahai’s statement comes in reference to the letter that he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on February 5, 2008 on the issue of allocation of coal blocks to a particular company for the steel sector . “The allocation made the next day by the Coal Ministry was for a company from the power sector and not the steel sector. The decision to allocate the coal block for that company had been taken way back in September 2007 by the Screening Committee. Therefore, there is no basis in allegations that within 24 hours of my writing the letter, coal blocks were allocated by the PMO or the Coal Ministry, a view that has also been upheld by the court,’’ it added.
