New Delhi: Anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal has alleged
that companies who were raided earlier this week for landing coal fields
by misreporting facts were secretly warned that CBI investigators would
soon be arriving at the homes and offices of executives.
Irregularities in the allocation process are an important charge in the
coal scandal that has become a huge political crisis, with Parliament
more or less paralysed by the opposition BJP, which says it will not
stop noisy disruptions till the PM accepts responsibility for
"coal-gate" and resigns. Mr Kejriwal tweeted this morning, "Received mail from an officer in one of raided coms. They were informed two days in advance about raids and were asked to remove all materials." The CBI has said that's incorrect. In a statement it clarified that the agency "categorically denies as completely false" the allegation made by the activist, who plans to launch a political party on October 2.
Earlier this week, the CBI registered cases against five private companies who were given coal blocks while they were apparently ineligible for them. The agency believes that bureaucrats and others who were part of a committee that screened applications colluded with the companies. Among a group of about 20 people who are accused of charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to cheating are Congress MP Vijay Darda, his brother Rajendra Darda who is a minister in the Maharashtra government, and an entrepreneur named Manoj Jayaswal who partnered with Mr Darda in setting up two companies, both of which were raided. Both Vijay and Rajendra Darda have denied that they used their political clout to help their firm land coal blocks.
The CBI says that companies deliberately misreported their net worth and their technical expertise. For instance, Navbharat Power, which was given two coal blocks in Odisha, projected a net worth of one lakh crores by showing short-term MoUs or agreements with two international power majors when they filed their application.
So Navbharat said it had a Memorandum of Understanding or MoU for 90 days with a Singapore-based company, which placed its net worth at about 2000 crores. Then it showed an MoU with another global power, pushing its net worth to one lakh crores. However, Navbharat produced no documents to prove these deals.
The CBI is looking at whether officials who sanctioned coal blocks deliberately over-looked these sort of glaring lapses. In some cases, stake-holders in firms sold equity after their firms were given coal fields, which was against the rules, but made them huge profits.
(With Inputs from Agencies)
