Bureaucrats & 'conspiracies'

P C Parakh's book 'The Coal Conundrum' is about sectors that govt tried to reform in past 25 years

P C Parakh has titled his book The Coal Conundrum but it could just have easily passed muster as The Air India Conundrum — or, indeed, any of the myriad sectors in which the Indian government has tried to reform in the past 25 years. The dramatis personae are the same: The hesitant executive, the irresponsible opposition of the day, a constituency for protection (often the unions) and an overzealous judiciary.

Within that framework, you could imagine this book as a set of three lectures. They are complete in themselves; they are a scholars’ delight yet an excellent intro for a novice. Most of all, they include a fine case study of how to defend one’s position against the judiciary.

Unlike Mr Parakh’s earlier book, Crusader or Conspirator?, a capsule treatment of his career as an IAS officer and his run-in with politicians, this one has a textbook feel to it as he lays threadbare his run-in with the judiciary. The former book dwelt on many issues besides coal, this one is about how trying to reform the sector has made one of the finest secretaries to the Government of India a victim of India’s institutional weaknesses. 

As he writes: “The Supreme Court decisions in Coalgate and the subsequent CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] court order taking cognisance of charges of conspiracy, corruption and abuse of office against me and the former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh… have serious flaws and completely overlook specific provisions of law…While a citizen aggrieved of Parliamentary or Executive arrogance can approach the Judiciary for redressal of his grievance, there is no relief against judicial arrogance”. 

Before going further, two caveats. First: As a rule, Business Standard does not publish reviews of self-published books. An exception has been made for this one because it raises critical and uncomfortable issues about India’s political economy. 

Second: To research my book India’s Coal Story, I sat for hours with Mr Parakh at his home in Secunderabad, listening spellbound to his razor-sharp narration of the events that coloured his term as secretary, coal, 10 years ago. I came away convinced he had explained everything but, with this book, Mr Parakh has uncovered much more. And told in his trademark terse way, this is a gripping account.

What Mr Parakh sets out to say is that the failure of the political executive to stay the course on its decisions, held hostage by often minor dissenters, frequently sets the ground for judicial overreach. It ends up laying the blame at the door of the officers who have signed on the decision, criminalising without proof their executive actions. 

The victim is tarred for life. “No court in the country has the capacity to compensate the citizen for such loss of reputation and the mental agony caused to him,” he writes. It is a disturbing conclusion that he says can take a heavy toll on the country’s economy and polity. These are valid arguments drawn from Mr Parakh’s experience in the coal ministry. 

The P C Parakh-Manmohan Singh-Hindalco-Birla case, which basically questioned the allocation of a coal block, Talabira-II, to Hindalco, has highlighted, like few others, how poorly equipped the Indian courts are to differentiate between legitimate but competing options in a matter of policy and a case of criminal pay-off, making for a mis-trial. 

“A clear line with mathematical precision and certainty cannot be drawn between public interest and private interest,” Mr Parakh argues about the case where the presiding judge of the special court declined to accept two closure reports filed by the CBI. The former secretary says when the judge attributed conspiracy in giving joint coal mining rights to the Aditya Birla Group’s aluminium firm, Hindalco, along with public sector Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) at Talabira-II block, he had not gone into the “merits of the case”. 

As he explains, “Hindalco had been working on the project since 1988 and had put in considerable effort and resources including obtaining a lease for a bauxite mine…. NLC had done nothing on the ground except applying for a coal block.” 

Mr Parakh also argues that while the private sector company had a far superior claim on the block, there was no loss envisaged for NLC since as a government company, it could dip into blocks not earmarked for captive mining. Hindalco, on the other hand, as a private sector company, only had a site-specific right, so either it was allocated Talabira-II or it would have to return to the end of a long queue of applicants, and wait for several more years in the bargain. 

Again, although the judge has raised questions about why the Hindalco decision was signed by the coal secretary without referring it to the screening committee a second time, Mr Parakh correctly observes, that it was not necessary since the latter was a recommendatory body. The final decision was that of the minister, in this case Manmohan Singh, holding additional charge of coal. In sum, nowhere did the court establish any illegality; instead it based its conclusions on inferences and, Mr Parakh says, “ignorance”. The case drags on. 

The conclusion is clear. If this is what visits a bureaucrat of Mr Parakh’s calibre, this or future governments will find officers extremely reluctant to sign executive orders. We need systemic reforms in governance for files on cases like allocation of public resources or disinvestment to move.

The Coal Conundrum

Executive Failure and Judicial Arrogance

Prakash Chandra Parakh

Published by P C Parakh

239 pages; Rs 600