All coal blocks during last 17 years since 1993 by various regimes at the Centre have been allocated illegally and arbitrarily, the Supreme Court today held, bringing uncertainty to the fate of 218 block allocations and consequential investments to the tune of around Rs 2 lakh crore.
The apex court, which used almost all terms to condemn the procedures adopted by 36 screening committee meetings since 1993, however, stopped short of cancelling them saying "what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled."
The court, which examined the allocation of 218 blocks in pre-auction era till 2010, held that they were done in an illegal manner by an "ad-hoc and casual" approach "without application of mind" and "Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily" due to lack of fair and transparent procedure resulting in "unfair distribution" of the "national wealth" -- coal -- "which is king and paramount Lord of industry."
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"To sum up, the entire allocation of coal block as per recommendations made by the Screening Committee from July 14, 1993 in 36 meetings and the allocation through the government dispensation route suffers from the vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws.
"The Screening Committee has never been consistent, it has not been transparent, there is no proper application of mind, it has acted on no material in many cases, relevant factors have seldom been its guiding factors, there was no transparency and guidelines have seldom guided it," a bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha said in its 163-page verdict.
The bench, also comprising justices M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, said "On many occasions, guidelines have been honoured more in their breach. There was no objective criteria, nay, no criteria for evaluation of comparative merits. The approach had been ad-hoc and casual. There was no fair and transparent procedure, all resulting in unfair distribution of the national wealth.
"Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily. Hence, the allocation of coal blocks based on the recommendations made in all the 36 meetings of the Screening Committee is illegal," it said.
