Metal stocks continued their downward journey for the second straight session, falling by as much as 20 per cent today, after the Supreme Court quashed allocation of 214 out of 218 coal blocks which were alloted to various firms since 1993.
Shares of Usha Martin nosedived 19.97 per cent to Rs 24.05, while Prakash Industries tanked 17.94 per cent to Rs 50.10 on the BSE.
Monnet Ispat tumbled 11.10 per cent, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd dipped 7.83 per cent, NMDC (5.07 per cent), Hindalco Industries (4.32 per cent) and Tata Steel (2.82 per cent).
Led by the sharp fall in these scrips, the BSE metal index fell by 3 per cent to end at 11,365.94.
In the previous session these stocks had fallen by up to 10 per cent.
In a major blow to the corporate sector, the Supreme Court yesterday quashed allocation of 214 out of 218 coal blocks alloted to various companies since 1993 terming it as "fatally flawed" and allowed the Centre to take over operation of 42 such blocks which are functional.
The apex court said the beneficiaries of the illegal process "must suffer" the consequences and refused to show sympathy to private companies which submitted that Rs 2.87 lakh crores have been invested in 157 coal blocks and Rs 4 lakh crores in end-use plants.
It, however, saved from the "guillotine" four allocations one each to SAIL and NTPC and two blocks to Sasan Power Ltd owned by Anil Ambani's Reliance Power and also gave a six months breathing time to rest of them to wind up their operations by March 31, 2015.
The broader market was also weak with the benchmark Sensex closing with a loss of 276.33 points at 26,468.36.
