Coal-gate: report that CBI officer wanted PM examined stirs opposition

Mangalore Today News Network/NDTV

New Delhi, Sep 4,2013: After a report that an officer investigating the coal allocation scam suggested that the Prime Minister should be questioned, sources in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Office today said while they cannot comment on the accuracy of the report, Dr Singh has assured Parliament that the government would "fully cooperate with the CBI" and is committed to a fair and thorough probe.

 

The main opposition party, the BJP, has used "Coal-Gate" to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister, who held direct charge of the Coal Ministry for some of the years under scrutiny. Today, the party raised the issue in Parliament, with its members shouting "PM jawab do (PM must explain)."

BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "The PM can’t be economical with the truth. There is a clear attempt to subvert the coal scam investigation. A CBI officer suggested the need to question the PM but was overruled."

To which, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajiv Shukla said: "Ravi Shankar Prasad just picks any news report that he likes in the morning and raises it in Parliament. The PM has said what he had to say."

A report in The Indian Express says that an investigating officer with the CBI, KR Chaurasia, documented  the "requirement " to question the Prime Minister, but that the agency’s top man, Director Ranjit Sinha, later said that’s unnecessary at this stage

In Parliament yesterday, Dr Singh, who had earlier defiantly said that he is "not the custodian of files", ceded to pressure from the opposition to make a statement on important documents that are needed for the CBI’s investigation and have gone missing. He said, "at this stage, it would be premature to say that files are missing or that there is something fishy."

He stressed "the government has nothing to hide" and is working to track down the documents in question.

The CBI’s investigation into why coal fields were given to private players without a transparent bidding process, allegedly costing the country thousands of crores, has added to the perception of a government whose operations are marked by ineptitude, corruption, or both. 

The CBI has said that mining rights were assigned opaquely and with no effort to check the background of firms who landed coal licenses, some of them linked to Congress leaders.