Union Coal Minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal on August 20 said that the government will make every effort to locate and supply the additional documents required by CBI regarding allocation of coal blocks. Coal Ministry has already handed over 769 files and other documents consisting of more than 1,50,000 pages to CBI.
This was stated by the Union Coal Minister while making a statement in Rajya Sabha. He said that an Inter Ministerial Committee headed by Additional Secretary, Coal has been constituted to locate the documents which are not readily available in the Ministry.
Full text of the statement of the Coal Minister is as follows: As reported by Central Bureau of investigation (CBI), it has registered 3 Preliminary Enquiry cases and 13 FIRs since May, 2012 regarding alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks made since 1993.
The CBI after registering the PEs has since requisitioned files/documents/applications/ feedback forms/ agenda forms etc. in original from the Ministry of Coal. So far nearly 769 files/folders/application forms/agenda booklets/ feedback-from booklets, etc. in original have been handed over to the CBI for investigation which is more than 150,000 pages. As investigation progresses, if additional documents are called for by the CBI, the Ministry would supply them to CBI and if any document is not available, it shall makes every effort to trace and supply the same to the CBI.
CBI has inter-alia asked for 7 applications/ documents of companies who had applied prior to 28.06.2004 but have not been allocated coal blocks, apart from few other files and documents.
Since, some documents /applications could not be located in the Ministry of Coal, I have constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary (Coal) with representatives from Ministries/Departments of Power, Steel, Industrial Policy & Promotion as well as Coal India Ltd. (CIL) and Central Mine Planning & Development Institute Ltd. (CMPDIL) on 11th July, 2013. The mandate given to the committee is to examine and review non-availability of files/documents and suggest appropriate action for locating the same. The committee has held two meetings so far and requested the members to locate the copies of documents/applications in their respective organizations.
All efforts are being made to locate documents which are not readily available in the Ministry of Coal. I would like to assure the House that my Ministry would leave no stone unturned in tracing and providing the documents sought by the CBI.
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