Rupak Kumar Dutta, Additional Director, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Thursday said there was delay in getting information from the Government on the coal block allocation scam.
“The documents from the Ministry has not come to the CBI at the speed they should have come,” he said during a seminar organised by the city-based MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Later responding to queries on ‘lost files’, he said that the investigative agency was yet to get access to some “specified” documents sought from the Coal Ministry.
“CBI has asked for specified documents from the Ministry. The Ministry said that it has been looking for the documents and provide them as soon as the Ministry gets them,” Dutta said. He, however, did not clarify if the said documents are part of the missing files.
Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal recently told Parliament that 189 documents related to the coal block allocations were missing. This was followed by an assurance from the Prime Minister to carry out due investigation on the issue.
NSEL crisis
Talking about the recent settlement crisis at the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), he said this crisis was similar to the Harshad Mehta scam in 1992 and Ketan Mehta-led crisis in the stock markets in 2001.
He blamed lack of regulation for the NSEL scam, saying “Though there is an Act in place for forward trading, there is no regulatory body.”
Ponzi schemes
Asked about the Saradha scam, Dutta said the scam wouldn’t have happened had the relevant law enforcing agencies acted in time.
Describing mushrooming of Ponzi scheme operators, especially in the East and North-East, as a “serious issue”, he said lack of coordination among various law enforcing agencies including those under the State Governments were the prime reason for that.
“Effective information sharing among law enforcing institutions and ground-level coordination is required,” Dutta said.
ayan.pramanik@thehindu.co.in