On Monday, the Supreme Court declared all coal block allocations since 1993 as illegal, in a decision that casts a shadow over investments worth thousands of crores. However, the consequences of this declaration, particularly whether such allocations will be scrapped or not, will be considered after the next hearing on Sept. 1.
The Bench, comprising of Chief Justice R. M. Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Madan B Lokur, said that the entire allocation of coal blocks, on recommendations made by the screening committee in 36 meetings and through the government dispensation route, suffered from the “vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws”.
Writing the judgment, the CJI said, “On many occasions, guidelines have been honored more in their breach. There were no objective criteria, nay, no criteria for evaluation of comparative merits. There was no fair and transparent procedure. ”
The Bench disposed of writ petitions filed by advocate M.L. Sharma and Common Cause, challenging the allocation of 218 coal blocks (these include 41 de-allocations and re-allocations) — 105 to private companies, 99 to government firms, 12 to ultra power projects and two coal-to-liquid projects.
After reading out the judgment, the CJI told Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, senior counsel Harish Salve and counsel Prashant Bhushan that one way of dealing with the issue would be to appoint a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge. The bench stopped short of deallocating the coal blocks saying further hearing was required to determine whether there was a need for cancelling 218 coal block allocations.
The SC said now it will hear from parties what should be done for future in the cases of cancelled coal blocks. The SC judgment prima facie puts huge burden on coal scam case accused as they would now find it difficult to say no wrong was committed in allocation of coal block.
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