In a significant development towards accountability in checking government corruption at the highest levels , the Supreme Court of India has ruled all coal block allotments made since 1993 till 2010, during both National Democratic Alliance and United Progressive Alliance governments, were made in an illegal and arbitrary manner.
3 Judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice R.M. Lodha held that, “no state government or public sector undertakings of the state governments are eligible for mining coal for commercial use”.
“Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily” as “there was no fair and transparent procedure, all resulting in unfair distribution of the national wealth”.
He went on to say that the commercial exploitation of coal blocks allocated for Ultra Mega Power Projects should not be tolerated.
Justice Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph, said, “allocation made both under the Screening Committee route and the government dispensation route, are arbitrary and illegal, what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled. We are of the view that, to this limited extent, the matter requires further hearing”.
“The Screening Committee has never been consistent, it has not been transparent, there is no proper application of mind, it has acted on no material in many cases, relevant factors have seldom been its guiding factors, there was no transparency and guidelines have seldom guided it”.
Chief Justice headed bench also observed that “There was no objective criteria, nay, no criteria for evaluation of comparative merits. The approach had been ad-hoc and casual. There was no fair and transparent procedure, all resulting in unfair distribution of the national wealth.
“Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily. Hence, the allocation of coal blocks based on the recommendations made in all the 36 meetings of the Screening Committee is illegal.”
The allocation of coal blocks, through the government dispensation route, was also found to be illegal in accordance to Coal Mines Nationalisation Act. The Court held, “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 Court examined the details of guidelines framed by the Central government for allocation of coal blocks and the process adopted for it and had declared that all of the allocations conducted by the screening commission through the Government dispensation were both illegal and arbitrary. The hearing continues.
