)
Fresh coal scam fires on Wednesday threatened to engulf Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with Opposition parties seizing on former coal secretary P C Parakh’s claim that if he was a conspirator in corruption in the alleged coal scam, so was the prime minister. He said the PM should be named in the CBI chargesheet as well. What made the PM even more vulnerable was a weak defence put forth by his party.
In its 14th first information report (FIR) in the alleged coal block allocation scam, filed on Tuesday, CBI has claimed industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and Parakh conspired to overturn the screening committee recommendations and allot part of a coal block meant for state-owned entities to Birla’s company.
While opposition parties reacted predictably, demanding the PM’s explanation for his role in the scam, industry was shocked into vocal defence of one of their fraternity.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all guns blazing, said: “Accountability of the PM and the PMO is equally important. Therefore, we demand a fair investigation.” The party said Parakh was a bureaucrat of credibility, so the PM needed to explain his role in the allocation.
However, top CBI sources said the agency had filed its FIR on the basis of evidence and not hearsay or rumour. The Supreme Court was monitoring the case. CBI would present its evidence and its reasons for filing the chargesheet against some individuals and not against others, officials said.
In an interview with Business Standard, Parakh challenged the CBI allegations, saying: “There is absolutely nothing wrong in this case. If CBI feels there is something wrong and we hatched a conspiracy in doing so, the investigation should be made against everybody who has been party to this conspiracy which should include, apart from Birla and me, the prime minister. Birla made a representation. I made this recommendation. The prime minister examined it and took a decision.”
CBI officials, however, said they had applied their mind, evaluated the evidence and only then filed the FIR. Top sources said no one was above the law and that the agency had done all due diligence before filing the FIR.
The agency has yet to provide details of the quid pro quo that Parakh received for showing favours to Birla’s company, Hindalco.
In its FIR, CBI has alleged Birla’s company was accommodated even though the provisions allowed the allocation only to public-sector entities. “The screening committee’s recommendations were overturned, abusing the official position to give favours to Hindalco,” CBI said.
In the earlier FIRs, too, CBI had named top industry officials, including JSPL Chairman Naveen Jindal, Jharkhand Ispat Chairman R S Rungta and Rathi Steel and Power CEO Udit Rathi.
After registering the fresh FIR with a CBI court here, agency teams carried out coordinated searches at nearly six locations — offices of Hindalco in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar and the residence of Parakh in Secunderabad, Hyderabad.
Describing Parakh as an upright IAS officer, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said: “The time has come for Parakh to speak up. He has spoken a little, he should come clean now, make public statements of how files were disposed of at that time (when the PM was in charge of the coal ministry).... (He should tell us) How chits were received from the Congress party headquarters in the PMO and PMO transmitted those instructions to the coal ministry for allotment of coal blocks,” Sinha said.
“We are all aware of the fact that he was the coal minister during the period of the coal scam and every allotment of coal block was done with his signature,” he said.
Sinha also wondered how a person who finally approved the coal block allotments could escape responsibility and how more responsibility be put on those who just made recommendations to the PM.
BJP Spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said it was “ridiculous” that Parakh, a whistleblower and the one who suggested correction in the system and introduction of competitive bidding, should be accused while the prime minister, who was the final authority, absolved of responsibility.
The Congress’ defence of the PM was technical and weak. As the matter was being monitored by the Supreme Court, “unnecessary speculation”, should be avoided, Union Minister Manish Tewari said, adding the government had been “cooperating fully” on the issue.
Congress General-Secretary Digvijaya Singh said while Parakh was a free man, whatever he had to say on the matter should be before CBI. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma dwelt, in an interview, on the injustice done to Birla but said little to defend the PM.
