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The Supreme Court today allowed release of Officer probing Coal Scam, in a plea challenging Coal Allocation between 1993 and 2010. Court had earlier put a restriction on transfer of Officers investigating the present matter.

A Full Bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana, Justice Vineet Saran and Justice Surya Kant, allowed the release on no objections.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan for the petitioner expressed no objections.

Learned SGI, Mr. Mehta and Spl. PP Maninder Singh agreed as well.

Earlier Developments

The last development was appointment of Mr. Maninder Singh, former ASG and Shri Rajesh Batra, Advocate as Special Public Prosecutors in the matter. This came in pursuant to the application by ED, to conduct prosecution of cases under the PMLA, 2002 – pertaining to coal allocation matters.

Prior to this, Shri Rajinder Singh Cheema, Senior Advocate served as Spl. PP in the matter.

Earlier, Delhi High Court had requested the Top Court for appointment of another suitable officer, in place of Special Judge Bharat Parashar, who was hearing the matter, given to the expiry of his posting tenure – Accordingly Mr. Arun Bhardwaj and Mr. Sanjay Bansal was appointed, by order dated April 5, 2021.

Brief Background

The present PIL deals with allocation of coal blocks between 1993 to 2010. According to the petitioner, the allocation made during the said period was illegal and unconstitutional.

Grounds preferred by the petitioner:

(a) Non-compliance of the mandatory legal procedure under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.

(b) Breach of Section 3(3)(a)(iii) of the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973.

(c) Violation of the principle of Trusteeship of natural resources by gifting away precious resources as largesse.

(d) Arbitrariness, lack of transparency, lack of objectivity and non- application of mind.

(e) Allotment tainted with mala fides and corruption and made in favour of ineligible companies tainted with mala fides and corruption.

By Judgment dated August 25, 2014, The Top Court held that the entire allocation of coal block as per recommendations made by the Screening Committee from July, 1993 suffers from the vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws. 

“The allocation of coal blocks through Government dispensation route, however laudable the object may be, is illegal – since it is impermissible as per the scheme of the CMN Act. No State Government or public sector undertakings of the State Governments are eligible for mining coal for commercial use. Since allocation of coal is permissible only to those categories under Section 3(3) and (4), the joint venture arrangement with ineligible firms is also impermissible,” the bench had then said.

Case Title: ML Sharma v. Principal Secretary