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Even as sections of the government and India Inc erupted in outrage over the CBI naming Kumar Mangalam Birla in its latest FIR in the coal case, the action is all set to shift to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
The top financial panel of Parliament has decided to summon for questioning the Aditya Birla Group Chairman, and former Coal Secretary P.C. Parakh, both of whom were among those named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its 14th First Information Report relating to the case.
The examination is unlikely to stop there. Members in the panel want industrialists including Naveen Jindal, Vijay Darda, Ajay Sancheti and other beneficiaries of the allocation to be summoned along with the then Ministry officials.
Asked if the Prime Minister will also be summoned, a person aware of the developments quipped that “all roads lead to Rome.” It is, however, the prerogative of the PAC Chairman, Murli Manohar Joshi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, to decide the names of people who have to be interrogated by the panel.
On Tuesday, the CBI named Birla, Parakh and a few others in a fresh FIR in the case. While Hindalco, the Aditya Birla group company that was supposed to have benefited by the coal allocation, denied any irregularities, the former Coal Secretary Parakh, defending the Government’s decision to allot coal blocks, contended that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who held the coal portfolio then, should also be named a co-conspirator, if the CBI suspected a conspiracy in the allocation.
A source in the PAC told Business Line that the panel has sought the convenience of key players in the issue for their detailed examination. The source said now it has become inevitable that without Parakh’s examination the committee cannot complete its work on the Comptroller & Auditor General’s report on the coal allocation, which sparked a furore.
The committee has interacted with the Government Auditor, senior Coal Ministry officials and the CBI on the matter. “Parakh is a former secretary and he must be having more information on the issue,” the source said.
A similar move by the PAC, headed by the veteran BJP leader, in the 2G case had invited sharp reactions from the Congress. The PAC’s report on the 2G scam is yet to be tabled in Parliament. Industrialists Ratan Tata and Anil Ambani had appeared before the PAC when it examined the 2G scam.
Sources in the panel said the process is likely to be expedited as the PAC wants to submit its report in the winter session of Parliament. “Summoning all beneficiaries will be time-consuming. We may call senior officials and industrialists who are willing to appear before the panel,” a member said.
Though the Prime Minister was willing to appear before the PAC in the 2G scam, the Congress had resisted Joshi’s move to examine even the officials of the Prime Minister’s Office. Since Jindal and Darda are MPs, the PAC will have to seek the permission of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha to summon them.
A Congress member on the PAC said they will resist Joshi’s attempts to politicise the panel. “He is trying to play politics using the PAC ahead of the Assembly elections. We will not allow this,” he said.
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