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The court has ordered Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into 14 most serious cases, involving top industrialists and bureaucrats. One issue, which relates to corruption/malpractice in judiciary/judges/tribunals, etc, has been referred to the Chief Justice of India, while another, on “allotment of iron ore mine to Reliance ADA group without having any steel plant”, will be looked into by the Chief Vigilance Officer of the mines ministry.
These issues were brought out in two reports prepared at the instance of the court, one consisting of officials from the Department of Revenue of the finance ministry and the other by an inter-ministerial committee. They had prepared 17 such issues. (SC ORDER EXPLAINED)
A Bench of judges G S Singhvi and Justice V Gopal Gowda directed CBI to make inquiries and file its report within two months.
CBI’s reports will be given to a new Bench on December 16 that will not include Justice Singhvi, who retires on December 11.
The issues to be probed include favours allegedly shown to top corporate houses like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, Anil Ambani’s Reliance ADA Group and the Tatas, working of touts, kickbacks in the aviation sector, manipulation of Unitech’s stocks and illegal gratification paid to tax officers.
Holding that the taped conversations suggest “unscrupulous elements have used corrupt means to secure favours from government officers”, the court has directed the probe on various issues, including “favours” shown by V K Sibal, the then director general of hydrocarbons, to RIL and quid-pro-quo received. It has also ordered a CBI probe into the allotment of coal blocks to the Sasan ultra mega power project, run by Reliance ADA Group, and allotment of Iron ore mines at Ankua, in Singhbhum District of Jharkhand to Tata Steel.
When approached by Business Standard, an RIL declined to comment, while Tata Group said: “The matter is sub judice, so we cannot comment on any specifics. We will offer full cooperation in any inquiry by any govt agency.”
A spokesperson for Reliance ADA Group said: “We welcome the independent time-bound enquiries by CBI, monitored by the Supreme Court, which will clearly establish our bona fides, and once and for all prove beyond doubt that we have been the unfortunate victims of a mischievous campaign of calumny and vilification conducted at the behest of our unscrupulous corporate rivals over the past five years. The hollowness of the allegations is evident from the fact that we have not been allotted any iron ore mines, and we are, in fact, not in that business at all.”
“Similarly, the allocation of coal mines to the Sasan project was done to a 100 per cent government-owned company in 2006, when Reliance Power had not even won the project. The government disinvested its shares to Reliance pursuant to a Global Tender in the year 2007,” he added.
“The use of surplus coal from the Sasan UMPP has been approved on 2 separate occasions by two EGoMs, headed by Shri Pranab Mukherjee (now Honourable President of india). The Delhi High Court has also dismissed a petition in 2009 on this matter filed against the government by Tata Power (the client of the lobbyist spreading allegations in this regard). Also, the alleged loss of revenue to the exchequer by RCom relates to industry issues involving all telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Tata Tele, and all operators have already been granted stay orders by the courts against action by DoT,” the spokesperson further said.
The examination of the tapes, believed to run into 5,800 pages regarding calls made by Radia between August 20, 2008, and July 9, 2009, is not over yet. During the course of the proceedings, the government counsel provided a list of officials who would continue the examination. Five of them have been selected by the court to assist the existing team consisting of income-tax officers.
The court further directed that the evaluation of the transcripts be supervised by a team of top CBI officers and the overall supervision be done by CBI DIG Santosh Rastogi.
