When it broke out, the coal scam centred on a number — the Rs 1.86 lakh crore that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) claimed was handed over by the Government as windfall gains to private players by distributing coal blocks without auctions. Now this number, staggering though it is even if entirely notional, could well be dwarfed by a much smaller one — 12. This is the number of missing files on coal block allocations that the Central Bureau of Investigation has sought from the Government. With the Supreme Court monitoring the probe and the Government continuing to respond as if it were trying to block it, Coalgate could well morph from a financial scam into a serious political crisis. The controversy that a CBI officer wanted to examine Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in charge of the coal ministry between 2006 and 2009 — something the CBI director has neither confirmed nor denied — has the potential to spiral into something much bigger than the Government anticipated.

In this connection, the Government has hardly helped its case by being ambivalent about the missing files. It continues to treat them as if they were carelessly misplaced and not — as is widely suspected — simply stolen to stymie the probe and scupper the case. The Prime Minister himself has behaved as if he wanted nothing more but to wash his hands off the case, telling Parliament last week that he was not the custodian of files in the Coal Ministry. While this may be technically accurate, it does nothing to quell suspicions that he and his Government are not keen on prosecuting those responsible for failing to realise the real worth of the 85 coal blocks allocated without competitive bidding between 2004 and 2009. The CBI’s own focus, going by the FIRs it has filed in the case, seems largely on the private players. Confidence that it will investigate this issue independently and impartially was shaken on the discovery that former Law Minister Ashwini Kumar “corrected” the Coalgate report prepared by the investigating agency for the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had already slammed the investigating agency for changing the “heart” of the probe report to suit the interests of its masters, apart from criticising the pace at which the probe has progressed. Of course, any thorough investigation that attempts to connect the dots between the companies allotted captive blocks and the politicians and bureaucrats who handed them out is impossible if crucial files have gone missing. It is unlikely though that the Supreme Court will allow the scandal to be deflected by a mixture of stonewalling and dissembling. The coal scandal has already consumed the job of an Additional Solicitor General and a Law Minister and now seems to be getting perilously close to the Prime Minister’s Office. It is time the Government showed it is serious about getting to the bottom of the matter rather than acting as if it is trying to cover up.

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