Petition in SC to probe Birla's hawala dealings

An NGO has moved the Supreme Court to ask for a CBI and ED probe on the Aditya Birla Group’s alleged hawala transactions, money laundering and bribery.

The petitioner NGO Common Cause, who’s PIL led to the cancellation of the coal block allocations, also urged the court to probe the permission given to divert coal from the block allotted to Sasan ultra mega power project.

The application filed by advocate Prashant Bhushan cited the CAG report detailing how the coal extracted from a captive coal block allocated to the Sasan project was allowed to be diverted, resulting in a post-bidding concession worth Rs 29,000 crore to Reliance Power Limited (a Reliance ADAG company).

A top official of the Birla Group allegedly admitted that large sums of cash were routed through hawala by the Group, it contended, adding that during Jayanti Natarajan’s tenure as minister for Environment and Forest, as many as 13 projects of the group companies were cleared.

The application also pointed to alleged recovery of unaccounted Rs 25 crore during the raids on the company office.