Journalism of Courage
In what will be seen by the government as an endorsement of its stand,former CAG Vinod Rai,whose report had found irregularities in the allotment of coal blocks,has said that the allotment of a block in Orissa to Hindalco did not figure in the auditors final report as it was found justified.
Rais comments came three days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh owned up responsibility for the decision to allot the Talabira block to Aditya Birla group firm Hindalco.
A detailed statement from the PMO had Saturday said the allotment was entirely appropriate and was done on the merits of the case. It had also said that the allotment had been strongly supported by the Orissa government of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The CAG,during Rais term,had in its report on coal blocks allotment named 25 companies as beneficiaries of largesse and named former coal secretary P C Parakh as the officer who had initially pushed for auctions of the blocks and who later headed the Steering Committee to select beneficiaries.
Speaking to The Indian Express,Rai said he did not want to comment on the action of the CBI or the contents of the FIR against Parakh and Aditya Birla group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. But he said the PMO clarification showed that everyone was on the same page while justifying the allotment.
Last week,the CBI registered an FIR and accused Birla and Parakh of criminal conspiracy in the case as the coal ministry had first rejected Hindalcos application for the mine and then changed its mind and approved the allotment.
Now that the PMO has issued a detailed clarification,Parakh is not in any trouble. It has been clarified that all the decision-takers together arrived at the formula when the company got a 15 per cent stake…the CAG also had all the information and correspondence on the Hindalco case but it did not figure in our final report for this very reason, Rai said.
He also justified the CAGs assessment of windfall losses in the coal scandal saying this was a term Parakh himself used in his correspondence when he was coal secretary.
The former CAGs comments come as the CBI submitted its latest status report on the coal blocks allotment probe to the Supreme Court. The agency is understood to have included the FIR about the Talabira mine case in the report.
The agency now proposes to question the key people involved in the decision,including Parakh himself. It is then expected to decide on how to deal with the issue of seeking a clarification from the competent authority mentioned in the FIR,which is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as he held charge of the coal portfolio at that time.
