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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | PMO official’s visit to CBI office leaves PM exposed

PMO official’s visit to CBI office leaves PM exposed

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published Published on May 9, 2013   modified Modified on May 9, 2013
-The Times of India


The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) faced its sharpest indictment in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, with a senior official's visit to the CBI office to scan and suggest changes to an investigation report on Coalgate attracting the court's severe ire.

The court's scathing comments on Shatrughna Singh, a joint secretary in the PMO, and Ashok Bhalla, a joint secretary in the coal ministry, seeking changes in a draft report pertaining to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he held the coal portfolio will leave those who authorized the visit squirming.

The draft did not suit PMO at all as the CBI account was at cross purposes with the defence being prepared by officials arguing that coal allocations during UPA-1 - despite a few aberrations - were not without method.

The PMO's problem lay in putting forward a plausible explanation for the absence of a comparative analysis of competing bids for coal blocks to show why a particular bidder won while another lost. This is at the heart of the charge that allocations were arbitrary and politically influenced.

Unlike in the 2G case, where the PM wrote to A Raja asking the DMK leader to consider suggestions to make allocation of telecom licences fair and transparent, there no such cover in this case. In fact, the screening committee process of allocations was overseen by PMO.

Concerned that the SC could strike down coal allocations just like 2G licences, the PMO has been worried that such an eventuality would not only be a body blow to a weak economy but would seriously undermine Singh's authority as PM.

The temptation to water down the CBI's conclusions led the officials to knock out the very basis on which the agency had built its case - that there was no justification for the coal block allocations.

The PMO and the coal ministry were also bothered that illegalities suggested by the CBI seemed to justify the Comptroller and Auditor General's conclusion - vehemently rejected by the government - that the allocations cost Rs 1.86 lakh crore in revenue losses.

The bid to tweak the drafts annoyed the SC as a report meant for the court's scrutiny was shared by CBI with the "affected parties" - the PMO and the coal ministry - whose officials suggested amendments diluting the agency's case.

While the PM had a close brush with the SC in the 2G case over his response to a request for sanction of prosecution of then telecom minister A Raja submitted by Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, his office escaped censure.

Congress has stonewalled the opposition's bid to move the 2G blame beyond Raja to the PM and finance minister P Chidambaram, but Coalgate is proving harder to brush off. Like an unruly piece of chewing gum, the scam keeps reappearing to embarrass the PM.

There was a grave risk in trying to take the sting out of the draft report through deletions made on the ground that CBI's probe into Coalgate was still incomplete: the government was exposed to the charge of covering up its omissions.

This is precisely what happened when media reports revealed that CBI chief Ranjit Sinha had refused to sign an affidavit assuring the apex court that the status reports had not been shared with anyone outside the agency.


The Times of India, 9 May, 2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/PMO-officials-visit-to-CBI-office-leaves-PM-exposed/articleshow/19960901.cms


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