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Coalgate: Supreme Court asks Centre to co-operate with CBI in probe

ET Bureau Aug 6, 2013, 08.25PM IST
(The Supreme Court today…)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to make available to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) any file sought by it relating to the coal block allocations, saying that all authorities must cooperate to ensure a fair and impartial probe into the allocations.

A three-judge bench, led by Justice RM Lodha, asked the CBI a pointed question on whether all government agencies were cooperating with it. CBI counsel Amarendra Sharan said that they were, but hedged his reply saying, "Some files had been sought, but have not yet come."

Attorney General GE Vahanvati rejected litigant Manohar Lal Sharma's allegation that the government had failed to comply with the court's earlier order to submit all files relating to the case.

"Its work in progress.... We are trying to locate the files and give it," Vahanvati said.

The attorney general also angrily shrugged off a suggestion that the government was not cooperating with the CBI. "The coal secretary has told me that whatever has been asked by the CBI has been given. If the CBI wants anything more, it should ask him," he said.

However, not content to leave things to chance, Justice Lodha passed an order directing the authorities to cooperate with the CBI. "Any file sought by the CBI should be given without delay," he said.

Sharma, who has filed a public interest litigation, specifically sought to know whether files relating to Jindal Steel had been handed over to the CBI, but the agency refused to make a statement on this.

The court's short order came after a day of inconclusive arguments on the issue of whether government sanction was a must for initiating an investigation against an officer above the rank of joint secretary.

Vahanvati strongly opposed any move by the court to bypass this statutory requirement, saying it was necessary to protect officers from mala fide harassment. But the bench rejected his argument, saying in a court monitored case, this was superfluous.

This prompted Vahanvati to raise the spectre of judicial officers being probed without the chief justice of India's nod in cases such as the provident fund scam. But the bench did not buy his argument, insisting that court supervision was enough to prevent any sort of harassment. Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO CPIL, which is the other petitioner, also insisted that no sanction was essential for a mere probe.

Vahanvati suggested that the court instead seek the government's opinion in all such cases, if it was not fine with the idea of a time-barred sanction.

The government should deal with all such cases of sanction within three months and explain why it wasn't clearing a particular probe, he had initially suggested. The case will now come up for hearing on August 29. The CBI will submit another status report on the probe by August 27.