Coalgate row continues to haunt law minister

Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar appears to have slid deeper into a crisis following the comments of Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran that Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha should not have shared the report on coal scam probe with the politician.

Kumar is already under fire from both the Opposition parties as well as the Supreme Court, which is hearing the Coalgate sam case, for his role in vetting the CBI report on coal block allocations, despite the court’s earlier ruling. The SC will take up the case on May 8. The CBI is set to file a fresh affidavit in the case on May 6.

The minister’s fate is likely to be known on May 8, as the Union Government and Congress, to which Kumar belongs, would keenly be watching what the apex court has to say on his controversial actions. Congress has given indications that it would not support the minister if the SC came down on him.

Speaking to TV channels, Parasaran, however, managed to put the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in the clear over the vetting of the report. The CBI Director had submitted to the court that the report was shown to the minister and to a joint secretary in the PMO.

According to him, the PM was not aware of the meetings between the CBI Director and the Law Minister, and that the PMO was not aware as to how much was shared with the Law Minister. Nor was PM aware of the role played by the joint secretary from the PMO, he said.