Coal and conspiracy

The filing of an FIR against the Aditya Birla Group Chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla, and a former Coal Secretary by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of criminal conspiracy and corruption is a reminder of how important it is to insulate investigation from misinformation, from political machination and from judicial over-activism. To begin with, it is important to keep in mind that the issue about irregularities in allotment of coal blocks would not have assumed such a frightening dimension if it wasn’t for the CAG’s fanciful and entirely notional number of Rs 1.86 lakh crore — the supposed windfall gain that would have accrued to private players. Although the methodology of CAG, which has been accused of financial illiteracy, has been strongly and persuasively contested, the number has become a symbol of the enormity of the scandal (never mind that most of the coal is still unmined) and the venality of the politico-corporate nexus.

Whether the coal should have been auctioned, as the CAG suggested it should, is a policy issue. The question, at least from the point of view of criminal justice, is whether there was a conspiracy to sell the country’s assets short. The CBI, which is tasked with the job of determining this and which is monitored closely by a watchful Supreme Court, has hardly covered itself in glory. Doubts over whether it will investigate the issue impartially and independently have only increased after it was discovered that former Law Minister Ashwini Kumar made corrections in the Coalgate report submitted by the investigating agency to the Supreme Court.

At the same time, the perception that the Centre is attempting to scupper the probe has only gained credence after files went mysteriously missing from the Coal Ministry. The question following the CBI’s FIR naming Birla and former Coal Secretary P.C. Parakh is ‘What next?’ The latter has made a pointed observation — if the CBI thinks it has a prima facie case that he conspired in the awarding of two coal blocks in Odisha to aluminum major Hindalco, then shouldn’t it be examining all the links in this alleged chain of conspiracy? What is the agency going to do about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who, as Coal Minister, signed off on the award?

It is a sobering thought that the CBI has not yet uncovered even a whiff of a financial trail, which connects allottees to those who granted the allotments, in Coalgate. More often than not, it is the failure to establish this that has led to the collapse of cases filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Neither is it clear at the moment what procedures were flouted in securing the contracts. It is an even more sobering thought that the list of those awarded coal blocks between 1993 and 2007 covers virtually every conglomerate. It is nobody’s case that the guilty, however wealthy and well connected, must be protected. But a criminal investigation should be conducted fairly — in this context, independently of a meddlesome Centre, of a Supreme Court that runs the risk of over-reaching itself, and of an exaggerated CAG number that has unfortunately become synonymous with the scam.

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