Coalgate stings UPA again, Opposition spews venom
Coalgate is back to haunt the Manmohan Singh government. The opposition found the Indian Express report that Law Minister Ashwini Kumar and PMO officials had “vetted” the status report on Coalgate, submitted to the Supreme Court as effective ammunition to mount an all out offensive against the government.
The ruling Congress and the UPA government are once again on the defensive. The man at the centre of storm, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, interestingly did not deny the veracity of the report. He merely called it “speculative” and said he would clarify his position in his affidavit to the Supreme Court. His non-denial has further aggravated the problem for UPA. The affidavit has to be filed by 26 April.
The issue, which rocked Parliament’s Monsoon Session last year following a CAG report revealing that there was total lack of transparency in the allocation of coal blocks to private players and resulted in the loss of a whopping Rs 1.85 lakh crore the exchequer, has somewhat been put on the political backburner for some time. Now the fresh revelations that the Law Minister and PMO officials pressurised CBI to dilute the scam status report, has once again made the issue alive. More so, it comes days ahead the opening of second half of the Budget session of Parliament, starting from 22 April. The opposition parties including the BJP, the Left and JD(U) have made their intentions clear to make a no-hold barred attack on the government.
Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj was prompt in tweeting her protest. “This is a very serious matter: This is the evidence of government’s pressure on CBI to save the prime minister.” Her Rajya Sabha counterpart, Arun Jaitley too came out with a stinging criticism of the whole episode calling UPA a “rogue” government. “The CBI’s image of an independent agency is now completely demolished and dismantled. CBI cannot go to the root of the matter and find the truth, and even if some honest officer tries to find the truth, the UPA is a rogue government which will not allow it to act independently. The search for truth has now been interfered with, and this was being done at the level of minister and Prime Minister’s Office officials, raising serious questions. The UPA is interested in diluting the guilt of culprits. What dilutions are to be made in the report — that was the agenda of this meeting,” Jaitley said.
The BJP leader demanded a court monitored SIT investigation of coal scam. JD(U) was quick to call it a “contempt of the court”, since the status report was prepared at the directions of the Supreme Court to be submitted to it in a sealed cover. The Left Front too had been critical of it. Interestingly last time when Coalgate had erupted the Samajwadi Party had been critical of the government but the BSP had preferred to make it easy for the government. BSP chief supremo Mayawati even took on the BJP for not pausing its protests inside Parliament to consider her favourite issue, reservation of SCs and STs in promotion. This time Congress strategists will have a difficult time in the Lok Sabha, particularly because after DMK’s exit it is now heavily dependent on SP and BSP.
The Indian Express report said senior CBI officials, including director Ranjit Sinha, were summoned by the Union law minister days before the status report was filed. During the meeting, several amendments in the status report were suggested and some were also incorporated by the CBI. “We resisted as much as we could, but yes, some toning down was done following the meeting,” it said quoting a CBI officer. The CBI’s status report was similarly “vetted” by senior PMO officials. During that meeting with the PMO, a team of CBI officers, which did not include Sinha, was also present. It is not clear whether more changes were made to the report in this meeting.
The CBI’s stand in the report, submitted to the apex court on 8 March, differs from that of the government. In a hearing on 12 March the CBI and the Centre clashed over the coalgate scam. The CBI in the status report said that the coal block allocation during 2006-09 was done without verifying the credentials of companies which allegedly misrepresented facts about themselves and no rationale was given by the coal ministry in giving coal blocks to them. However, Attorney General GE Vahanvati aggressively hit back on the findings saying, “CBI is not the final word on this.” In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court had asked Sinha to clarify through an affidavit if the status report had been examined by the government as Vahanvati, when asked, told the court he had not gone through the report. A bench of justices RM Lodha, J Chelameswar and Madan B Lokur had directed Sinha to file an affidavit affirming that the status report submitted by the agency to the court in a sealed cover had not been “shared with the political executive”. It had asked the director to state in his affidavit that the report “was vetted by him and nothing contained therein has been shared with the political executive”.
The CBI director is in a tight position. He has to choose between his dignity and submission. The opposition is sure to make second half of the budget session dusty. For a change, the first half had been relatively quiet.
) Someone will adjust the seats issue and then all is well flag will be raised. Same things are going. BJP wants more from SS and also wants SS to shed more for Raj than what BJP sheds for him. Again the reason for such a posturing is Modi 
