Coalgate: Ex-Coal Minister Dasari Narayana Rao quizzed by CBI

Nair had denied any wrong doing in allocation of coal blocks to Hindalco. Registering of a case against Birla and Parakh was criticized by India Inc and former bureaucrats.

A decision on filing a closure report or a charge sheet will be taken by the CBI after completing the investigations in the case, the sources said.

Hindalco has denied allegations of irregularities. "We wish to state unambiguously that we have followed every process required for allocation of coal completely, as stipulated by the Government policy," it had stated.

CBI alleged that during 2005, these persons entered into a criminal conspiracy and the then public servant (Parakh) abused his position and showed undue favour to the Odisha-based industry in allocation of Talabira II and Talabira III coal blocks along with a Public Sector Undertaking of Tamil Nadu.

According to the FIR, Tamil Nadu government PSU Neyveli Lignite Limited was to be given Talabira II block but Parakh allegedly favoured Hindalco and allowed it to share the block with Neyveli leading to notional loss to the exchequer.

The agency could not reach exact quantum of loss as the coal block is still not operational. The blocks were allocated for power production during a meeting of Screening Committee of the Coal Ministry, the sources said and claimed that the coal allocation was meant for PSUs only.

Parakh, who was Coal Secretary at the time of this allocation, faces charges of criminal misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act as also criminal conspiracy.

The former coal secretary recently came out with a book in which he questioned CBI's decision to register a case against him and said if he was guilty then the Prime Minister should also have been named in the FIR.

He also said that there was no wrong doing in allocating the coal block to Hindalco.