CBI has summoned former Coal Secretary P C Parakh, named as an accused for allegedly abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco, a company of Aditya Birla Group, to appear before it on April 25 but the former bureaucrat expressed inability to do so owing to family commitments.
"I have asked CBI to give any date after May one," Parakh, 69, who retired as Coal Secretary in 2005, told PTI over phone from his Hyderabad residence.
In his book released recently, Parakh has been critical of CBI's action, especially its Director Ranjit Sinha, of registering a case against him and questioned the decision- making of the agency Chief in not naming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an accused as the Coal Ministry was under Singh's charge directly when Talabira-II coal block in Odhisa was given to Hindalco.
"My questioning has nothing to do with my book. It's a routine questioning as per the law," Parakh said.
CBI had last year registered a case against Parakh, Birla, besides unnamed officials of Hindalco and the Coal Ministry.
The agency alleged that during 2005, these persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and the then public servant (Parakh) abused his position and showed undue favour to the Odisha-based industry in allocation of Talabira II and Talabira III coal blocks along with the PSU.
According to the FIR, Neyveli Lignite Limited was to be given Talabira II block but Parakh allegedly favoured Hindalco and allowed it to share the block with Neyveli leading to notional loss to the exchequer.
The move to question Parakh comes after former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and the Prime Minister's Advisor T K A Nair were questioned by CBI.
