The Supreme Court’s questioning last week of the Centre’s authority to allocate coal blocks during the hearing of a public interest litigation regarding the ‘coalgate’ will have major implications

The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned Centre’s power to allocate coal blocks to companies, saying it has a lot of “legal explanation” to do as the statutory Act empowers only the states to undertake this task.

The apex court said that the Centre cannot undermine the Mines and Minerals Act which has given no power to it to allocate coal block to companies.
A bench of justices R M Lodha and J Chelameswar asked the government to go through other legislations particularly the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, to find out whether it is empowered to allocate the resources.

The agency grilled him on alleged misrepresentation by his companies while applying for coal blocks

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today questioned Abhijeet Group Chairman Manoj Jayaswal in connection with its probe into the coal block allocation scam. The agency grilled him on alleged misrepresentation by his companies while applying for coal blocks, CBI sources said. They said the agency is also scrutinising documents provided by Jayaswals in their defence.

During the year, govt also contemplated to open up sector for commercial mining

Coal fired a minefield of controversies in 2012, fuelled by CAG estimates of a huge Rs 1.86 lakh crore loss for allocation of coal blocks to business houses without auction which served as fodder to the Opposition parties to target the government. The blaze started from a leaked draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that initially had a figure of Rs 10.6 lakh crore loss resulting from the controversial allocation of coal blocks to about 100 companies without bidding.

In an attempt to fast-track coal production, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has decided to allow companies with mining leases to expand production by 25% over the initially approved plan, without having to secure a fresh environment clearance (EC) from the ministry.

The move will help companies avoid the cumbersome process of getting EC approvals — which includes public hearings that may take up to three years — for their first expansion. For subsequent expansions, however, a new EC will be required.

The power ministry has told an inter-ministerial panel that the proposed regulator for the coal sector should be equipped with adequate powers to decide upon the prices of the fuel to curb the “profiteering” tendencies of coal companies. It should also be empowered to adjudicate disputes between coal producers and buyers.

Ahead of the next meeting of the Group of Ministers constituted to suggest the powers and functions of the proposed regulator, the ministry contended that while power purchase agreements are regulated by the concerned electricity regulatory commissions, coal companies are not.

In its first meeting, the 14-member panel discussed eligibility criteria for coal block applicants

An inter-ministerial panel today discussed the mechanism for allotting coal mines to public sector firms. The 14-member panel, headed by Coal Secretary AK Srivastava, in its first meeting also discussed the eligibility criteria for coal block applicants. "The Inter-Ministerial Group [IMG] met for the first time today after its formation under the chairmanship of coal secretary. During the meeting it was discussed on how to evaluate the applications [of government firms] and what should be the criteria for allotting mines," a government official said

After de-allocating three coal blocks- Utkal-D, Manadakini-B and Baitarani West allocated to Odisha PSUs, the Coal ministry has sought details of joint venture (JV) arrangements with private players and mode of selection of the JV partners.

The coal ministry in a recent letter to Odisha chief secretary B K Patnaik, sought to know if the state PSU that was allotted coal block entered into an JV arrangement with private companies and whether legal opinion was sought for such an arrangement.

The Odisha government is yet to submit the action taken report in respect of illegal coal mining activities in the state despite repeated reminders from the Centre.

In the light of observations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on coal & steel, Coal secretary S K Srivastava has again asked Odisha chief secretary B K Patnaik to submit the action taken replies so that they can be sent to the Lok Sabha secretariat.