NEW Delhi, Jan 16: The Supreme Court today reserved its verdict on an application seeking cancellation of the coal blocks allocated in violation of guidelines and rules. A bench comprising Justices RS Lodha, Madan B Lokur and Kurien Joseph also permitted the CBI to investigate the money trail in foreign countries.
The permission was granted after CBI submitted before the court that one of the companies was having connection with the Malaysian government and a powerful member of the Malaysian Government was blocking the investigation by the Enforcement Directorate.
The petitioner sought cancellation of all coal blocks allocated during 1993-2005 as well as 2006-09. The SC had earlier told the Centre that bungling in the allocation of coal blocks and guidelines existed and therefore, no rules and guidelines have been followed in the allocation of coal blocks.
The fresh status report filed by CBI earlier this week shall be taken up for consideration on February 10.
The Government today informed the SC that the process for cancellation of coal blocks was already under way. As per a Comptroller and Auditor General report, bungling in the allocation of coal blocks has resulted in a colossal loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the nation.
CBI has also been pulled up for extremely slow pace of investigation and had made it clear that investigation has been compromised due to Government intervention.
The status report, however, does not mention about Prime Minister and PMO. Prime minister Manmohan Singh was also the coal minister between 2006-09. (UNI)
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