Coal Allocation between 1993 and 2009 illegal, arbitrary, non-transparent and were devoid of any procedure; Supreme Court [Read the Judgment]

In a landmark Judgment the Supreme Court today declared the Coal allocation between 1993 and 2009 illegal, arbitrary, non-transparent and were devoid of any procedure. A three Judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Lodha declared that the entire allocation of coal block as per recommendations made by the Screening Committee from 14.07.1993 in 36 meetings and the allocation through the Government dispensation route suffers from the vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws. "The Screening Committee has never been consistent, it has not been transparent, there is no proper application of mind, it has acted on no material in many cases, relevant factors have seldom been its guiding factors, there was no transparency and guidelines have seldom guided it. On many occasions, guidelines have been honoured more in their breach. There was no objective criteria, nay, no criteria for evaluation of comparative merits. The approach had been ad-hoc and casual. There was no fair and transparent procedure, all resulting in unfair distribution of the national wealth.Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily. Hence, the allocation of coal blocks based on the recommendations made in all the 36 meetings of the Screening Committee is illegal", held the Supreme Court.The PILs were filed by ‘Common Cause’ and Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma. It is also held that “the allocation of coal blocks through Government dispensation route, however laudable the object may be, also is illegal since it is impermissible as per the scheme of the CMN Act. No State Government or public sector undertakings of the State Governments are eligible for mining coal for commercial use. Since allocation of coal is permissible only to those categories under Section 3(3) and (4), the joint venture arrangement with ineligible firms is also impermissible. Equally, there is also no question of any consortium / leader / association in allocation. Only an undertaking satisfying the eligibility criteria referred to in Section 3(3) of the CMN Act, viz., which has a unit engaged in the production of iron and steel and generation of power, washing of coal obtained from mine or production of cement, is entitled to the allocation in addition to Central Government, a Central Government company or a Central Government corporation.It is also clarified that “As we have already found that the allocations made, both under the Screening Committee route and the Government dispensation route, are arbitrary and illegal, what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled. We are of the view that, to this limited extent, the matter requires further hearing.” The next hearing of the case will be on 1st September.

Coal Allocation between 1993 and 2009 illegal, arbitrary, non-transparent and were devoid of any procedure; Supreme Court [Read the Judgment]

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