NEW DELHI: India’s opposition insisted yesterday that Premier Manmohan Singh could not “escape responsibility” over alleged corruption in the allocation of coal blocks that the national auditor says cost the treasury billions of dollars.
The opposition stepped up pressure on Singh after India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) accused top industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, and the government’s former coal secretary P C Parekh of conspiracy in the coal allotments.
“We’re all aware of the fact he (Singh) was coal minister during the period of the scam and every coal block allotment was done with his signature,” said Yashwant Sinha, a leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“How can the prime minister escape responsibility?” asked Sinha, a finance minister under a former BJP government.
The opposition has repeatedly called on Singh to resign over the alleged scandal in which the government auditor accused the coal ministry department of underpricing the coalfields and giving away billions of dollars in windfall gains to firms.
The opposition has alleged kickbacks for the allotments, made without any transparent bidding process, went to the ruling Congress party.
Singh, who besides being premier headed the coal ministry between 2006 and 2009 when many of the allocations were made, has strongly rejected accusations of wrongdoing in what India’s media has dubbed “Coalgate”.
Both Birla, one of India’s best known industrialists, and Parakh, the retired government coal secretary, also denied being part of any illegal conspiracy
But Parakh said yesterday it was “the prime minister, who as the coal minister, took the final decision” on the allotments and demanded to know why Singh had not been named as an alleged co-conspirator.
“If a conspiracy is there, then everyone is part,” said Parakh.
The CBI filed a first information report (FIR) claiming aluminium-maker Hindalco, a unit of the Aditya Birla Group, was shown “undue favour” in obtaining mining rights in 2005. An FIR is the first step towards possible formal charges.
The CBI’s decision to file a case against Birla, 46, viewed by peers as a conservative businessman who plays by the rules, provoked shock in the corporate community and made front-page headlines in newspapers.
“He is straight as an arrow,” Deepak Parekh, chairman of the country’s largest housing finance company HDFC, told The Economic Times.
Birla joins a string of prominent figures accused in the investigation including Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel Power, a major Indian steel company. Police have lodged 14 FIRs in the case.
In a statement, Hindalco called the CBI’s allegations “preposterous”, while Birla said the company followed “all procedures in the coal mine allocation”.
Meanwhile, Indian commerce minister Anand Sharma appeared to share Indian industry’s concerns, calling the accusation against Birla “unfortunate” and saying the industrialist was held in “very high esteem”.
“If every (policy) decision made is questioned, if every person is questioned, if an atmosphere of fear is created, this country will suffer,” Sharma told India’s NDTV news channel.
AFP
