New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a plea seeking direction to the prime minister to file an affidavit explaining allocation of more than 150 coal blocks to various companies the validity of which is being examined by the apex court.
“Dismissed,” said a bench of Justice R M Lodha, Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph, brushing aside the public interest litigation (PIL) plea of advocate M L Sharma, seeking directions to the prime minister to file the affidavit.
Dismissing the plea, the court said: “We are hearing the matter and you are reaching the conclusion.”
Pressing his application, Sharma told the court that the manner in which recommendation letters were issued for the grant of coal blocks even by the federal ministers “exposes the scenario in what manner coal blocks were being allocated”.
“Recommendations letters had played a role in the allocation of coal blocks,” he said.
Sharma had moved the apex court on October 21 asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain the allocation of 150 coal blocks as he had done while defending the allocation of Talabira-II Coal block in Odisha to Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco.
He yesterday moved an application, saying, “...for the first time since the coal block allocation scam came up, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has explained about one allocation. But there have been more than 150 coal block allocations, so will he be able to explain all of them”.
The court yesterday asked the government to spell out its view on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) plea that its director should be vested with the status of being ex-officio secretary to the government so that he could communicate with the Minister for Personnel directly without wading through the bureaucratic web. IANS
