Coalgate: PM is equally responsible, says ex-coal secy

Even as corporate India reacts with shock and horror over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) naming industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla as an accused in an alleged faulty coal block allotment to his company Hindalco, former bureaucrat PC Parakh, who is the co-accused, hit out on the matter saying the responsibility was with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too.

The former coal secretary today said, “Prime Minister could have overruled my decision; everyone was equally responsible in the matter”, adding that he was not sure why the CBI had named him.

While the CBI remains tightlipped on how it chooses to ignore that a secretary is only below the minister, top sources have told CNBC-TV18 that the agency’s 14 th FIR is not the end of the probe into the coal scam. At least two other conglomerates are facing an intense probe into coal blocks allotted to them for their power and steel businesses and some action could be expected soon.

For the record, the Prime Minister’s Office said, “We have replied to all of this in Parliament. There is nothing new. Let the law take its course”.

Government managers are hoping that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will remain insulated from the fire and draw comfort from the fine distinction made by the Supreme Court with respect to the alleged role of other ministers in the 2G scandal. In the 2G cases, the CBI has charged both the secretaries and then ministers.

The opposition doesn’t think much of this line of thinking. “Parakh is correct in saying that the PM is the prime accused in this, because he was the Coal Minister when the allotments were made,” said BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.

Meanwhile, the CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta said there should be an inquiry into the matter.

Understandably, the Congress is chafing at the leash with Digvijay Singh warning that the “BJP should remember allocation policies were same during NDA” while I&B minister Manish Tewari said the entire matter was being investigated by the Supreme Court.

It is the redoubtable, serial litigant Subramanian Swamy who provided a glimpse into why the PM may not be named after all.  Swamy said the PM’s signature does not appear anywhere in coal allocation files. “We would have taken Parakh’s statement seriously if he had said this before, but after having been declared an accused, his statement holds no credibility.”

The CBI does not think much of the stunned reaction to its naming a famed industrialist, but is equally tightlipped as to what its future course of action is going to be, with officials only saying the decision would be taken at an appropriate time by Director Ranjit Sinha.