New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said all coal blocks allocated since 1993 to 2010 by the screening committee were illegal as they were not fair, transparent and suffered from vice of arbitrariness.
The bench, also comprising of Justice Madan B. Lokur, and Justice Kurian Joseph, however, stopped short of deallocating the coal blocks. Further hearing is required to determine whether there is a need for cancelling 218 coal block allocations, the bench said and has fixed September 1 to decide the consequences of the illegality of the coal blocks.
The apex court there will be no diversion of coal for commercial exploitation from coal blocks in question till further orders. The coal blocks were allotted mainly in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh to private companies.
Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has decided to file a closure report in the coal block allocation scam involving Kumar Mangalam Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh after a 10-month probe with the agency stating that they could not find any evidence in this matter.
Bureau Report
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