CBI, its master's voice

Coalgate The SC denounced as a whitewash the investigation agency's doctored report

Coalgate may prove to be watershed in many ways. It has already claimed its first victim – law minister Ashwani Kumar was forced to quit on Friday for making unauthorised and illegal changes in the draft status report on coal blocks allocation the CBI was to submit to the Supreme Court.

The coming days would be decisive as it would unfold, as wished by the apex court, a new avatar of the CBI and, perhaps, revive coalgate investigation that the ousted law minister and two joint secretaries of Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and coal ministry tweaked to take out of glare suspected top UPA functionaries.

Going by the court’s description of CBI as a “caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice” while  hearing two PILs on coal block allocation scam, the Supreme Court seems determined to free the premier investigation agency from political interference.

 The UPA government is in the dock for its role in the scam and also for its attempt to change the trajectory of probe and subsequent admission by CBI director Ranjit Sinha of changes having been affected by them.

Now, it is clear that the CBI made itself available for abuse.

Sinha made an astute as well as diplomatic reply to the Court’s query by claiming that changes in the report made at the instance of Minister Ashwani Kumar and two officials – a joint secretary each from PMO and coal ministry -- did not alter the “central theme” of report and nobody was let off.

However, the court virtually rejected the CBI director’s claim by stating that the very “heart” of the report was changed.

In a bid to give leeway to those who made alterations in its report, the CBI boss submitted that the changes were “factually correct” and acceptable to the agency.
Attorney General G E Vahanvati, who averred before the court that he had not seen the status report, claimed he merely “glanced” through it. Now, the country’s top law officer says the investigating officers came to his residence to show the report at the instance of the then Law Minister.

Notably, most of the changes were made in the PE (preliminary enquiry) No. 2 which dealt with the allocations made during 2006 and 2009 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in charge of coal ministry.

“Why was everybody interested in PE 2 only,” is the obvious query of the apex court.

According to advocate and social activist Sudiep Shrivastava, the second PE was launched by the CBI on a CVC reference following complaints made by BJP MPs Prakash Javadekar and Hansraj Ahir, who were interested in exposing the irregularities committed only during 2006 and 2009.

The CBI’s status report on preliminary enquiry (PE) 4 on coal block allocations made during 1993 and 2005 was also altered.

Sinha disclosed in his affidavit that the CBI’s finding that there was no system during 2006 and 2009 regarding allocation of specific weightage/points was deleted by officials from the PMO and coal ministry.

In contrast, both the joint secretary-level officials incorporated a sentence in the final status report on PE 4 highlighting the non-existence of approved guidelines for allocation of coal blocks.

Shrivastava, who made an intervention in the matter before the court, questions the changes. At one place, the officials wanted to delete the finding on absence of award system for applications for captive coal blocks, while at another, they wanted to add the same finding to raise question marks on allocations made by UPA’s predecessor governments.

The CBI’s finding that no broadsheet or chart was prepared by the screening committee indicating why a particular company got coal blocks was also removed by Kumar.

A sentence dealing with the scope of inquiry with respect to legality of allocation even when  amendments to the law were in process, was also deleted by the then Minister himself.

Both the drafts of the status report - before and after the doctoring - have been filed in the court in a sealed cover. 

If one refers to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report, it is noted that during the period 2006 and 2009, the screening committee made allocations of coal blocks to a particular allotee “in an arbitrary manner and for extraneous considerations”.

The screening committee was to go by minutes of its meetings. “However, there was nothing on record in the said minutes or in other documents on any comparative evaluation of the applicants for a coal block, which was relied upon by the screening committee. Minutes of the committee did not indicate how each one of the applicants for a particular coal block was evaluated,” the CAG states. 

It is during this period that the then Union Minister and Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahay urged the Prime Minister on February 5, 2008 to allot coal blocks in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to company SKS Ispat and Power which belonged to his younger brother Sudhir Kant Sahay. On the request, a letter was subsequently sent from the PMO to the coal secretary on June 2, 2008, allotting coal blocks to the firm.

On June 17, 2009, IST Steel and Power, a company owned by sons of RJD leader Prem Chand Gupta was reportedly awarded coal block having 70.74 million tonnes reserve.

It was also reported that as many as 35 coal blocks have been allotted to private companies after 2008 without the sanction of screening committee.

No transparency

There was no transparent system for allocation and the companies reaped windfall gains, the CAG concluded.

These allocations happened amid the efforts to bring an amendment to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 to include competitive bidding and auction for the purpose. This rashness altogether sullied the process as well as the action of the government.

Even though the apex court ordered reappointment of DIG Ravikant, Odisha cadre IPS officer in the CBI team probing coalgate, it would be interesting to note how the probe into the scam pans out. The court’s order is significant that the team of 33 officers assigned the investigation must not be changed without its permission.

The court also ordered the CBI not to share its status report with anyone.

This has come even though there is statutory bar in Section 172 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) on disclosing the case diary (status report) to the accused or to their agent. Law Minister and PMO or coal ministry officials would definitely not be entitled to see the status report as they were acting as agents of the government, facing charges of subverting the due process.

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