Supreme Court notice to ED on coal block attachment
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the response of Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea that the
agency had not yet begun proceedings for attachment of irregularly allotted
coal blocks under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which permits
it to treat illegal gratification as proceeds of crime.
A bench of Justices RM Lodha, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph asked the ED to file a status report detailing what investigations had been carried out so far after petitioner NGO 'Common Cause', through advocate Prashant Bhushan, said it had registered five cases under PMLA against 14 FIRs lodged by the CBI.
The petitioner said to the best of its knowledge, "no attachment orders have been issued till date" and cited the example of 2G spectrum scam case, where the ED had proceeded separately under PMLA and issued provisional attachment orders.
"The criminal activity committed by accused persons in securing allotment of coal blocks prima facie discloses offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating and abuse of official position. This means they also have prima facie committed the offence of money laundering under Section 3 of PMLA, punishable under Section 4 of the Act," it said.
However, the court wanted to ascertain the views of the states - Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal - on their role in allocation of coal blocks in light of the Centre's stand that the allotment of coal blocks were mere identification of the area, leaving it for states to do the rest of the exercise, including signing of the agreement for mining.
But Odisha had countered the Centre's stand saying the Centre seldom respected the state's views in allocation of coal blocks, though under the existing framework, the allocation process should have been initiated by a recommendation of the state concerned.
Adding to the woes of the Centre, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, said, "We have meticulously followed the Centre's direction. We have done nothing on our own. Our entire stand is that the Centre was the master and we just followed it."
The bench fixed December 5 to hear the response of the states on this issue.
A bench of Justices RM Lodha, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph asked the ED to file a status report detailing what investigations had been carried out so far after petitioner NGO 'Common Cause', through advocate Prashant Bhushan, said it had registered five cases under PMLA against 14 FIRs lodged by the CBI.
The petitioner said to the best of its knowledge, "no attachment orders have been issued till date" and cited the example of 2G spectrum scam case, where the ED had proceeded separately under PMLA and issued provisional attachment orders.
"The criminal activity committed by accused persons in securing allotment of coal blocks prima facie discloses offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating and abuse of official position. This means they also have prima facie committed the offence of money laundering under Section 3 of PMLA, punishable under Section 4 of the Act," it said.
However, the court wanted to ascertain the views of the states - Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal - on their role in allocation of coal blocks in light of the Centre's stand that the allotment of coal blocks were mere identification of the area, leaving it for states to do the rest of the exercise, including signing of the agreement for mining.
But Odisha had countered the Centre's stand saying the Centre seldom respected the state's views in allocation of coal blocks, though under the existing framework, the allocation process should have been initiated by a recommendation of the state concerned.
Adding to the woes of the Centre, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, said, "We have meticulously followed the Centre's direction. We have done nothing on our own. Our entire stand is that the Centre was the master and we just followed it."
The bench fixed December 5 to hear the response of the states on this issue.
MD NAUSHAD ALAM
PGDM 1 SEM.
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