Coalgate: Now files do vanishing act, Minister says they are searching

After facing flak from the Supreme Court for not providing all the files related to the coal block allocation scam, a committee has discovered that many files and documents have gone missing. According to records that have been accessed by the Hindu, the Search Committee created in order to furnish all the files to the CBI discovered that records pertaining to the meetings of the Screening Committee that allotted coal blocks were missing. Records of 157 private companies that applied for coal blocks unsuccessfully between 1993 and 2005 were also missing and other documents like a recommendation made by Congress MP Vijay Darda to the Prime Minister’s Office for a coal block are also untraceable, the report stated. [caption id=“attachment_1040891” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The minister said they are searching for the files. AFP[/caption] The committee had decided to inform the CBI of the missing files and is seeking that all the ministries and departments start working to find the records. However, coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said that they were attempting to find the files which may be with other ministries. “768 files have been submitted to the coal ministry.Yes, this is true that some of those files are missing. What we are trying is to get these files from other ministries,” Jaiswal was quoted as saying in a CNN-IBN report. The CBI had earlier told the Supreme Court that it hadn’t got all the required documents for its probe into allegations of corruption into coal block allocations. The Supreme Court had also pulled up the Centre for not responding “comprehensively” on alleged coal block allocation irregularities. “The CBI is struggling with a probe in absence of documents on the decision taken by screening committee on coal blocks allocation,” it had said .