Coalgate: Why the CBI's decision to file an FIR against Birla isn't wrong

The CBI had filed 13 FIRs in connection with the coal block allocation scandal but it was its 14th FIR that has earned the investigating agency the maximum brickbats.

Having named noted industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and bureaucrat PC Parakh in the FIR, the investigating agency for the first time since it took up the probe attracted criticism from multiple quarters, barring the Supreme Court.

Since the filing of the FIR, the PM has said corporates should be reassured, a battery of ministers have come out in support of Birla and the BJP has urged former bureaucrat Parakh to spill all the beans he can against the Prime Minister.

But it is surprising that this reaction has been prompted by the mere filing of an FIR by the investigating agency. The CBI chief has indignantly pointed out in an interview today that the agency’s decision to file the case was justified as it came after investigations over months.

[caption id=“attachment_1177143” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Birla has been implicated in the 14th FIR filed by the CBI. Reuters[/caption]

“There is no personal enmity that we have with anyone. Please don’t think we are such fools that we will file a case without strong documentary evidence,” Sinha said in an exclusive interview with Economic Times .

While Birla is not the first industrialist to be dragged into the matter, it does make sense to name him if there is evidence of his involvement.

By Parakh’s own admission in an interview to CNN-IBN , the decision to allocate the coal block to Hindalco, came after the industrialist made a representation to the Prime Minister and even met with the bureaucrat to plead his case. The CBI hasclaimed Parakh ignored the considered deliberations and recommendations of Screening Committee of which he was the Chairman.

Impropriety is automatically implied when a decision taken by the authorised government body is overturned by a bureaucrat and the Prime Minister to favour an industrial house. The discretionary allocation of coal blocks, if acknowledged as flawed, should proble anyone who benefited from it.

The CBI, which has faced multiple tongue lashings from the Supreme Court over its handling of the probe, may have chosen to play safe by filing FIRs in every case of discretionary coal block allocation. Or as Firstpost’s R Jagannathan pointed out yesterday, it may even be an attempt to accuse all and sundry of corruption in order to build pressure to scuttle the probe against the government.

Under Indian law, both Parakh and Birla remain innocent until proven guilty. The CBI can file its FIRs and seemingly look efficient for now, but unless it can find sufficient evidence to buttress its case it will finally have to drop the case.

However, as Parakh pointed he wasn’t the final authority on allocating the coal blocks, it was the coal minister who finally signed off on the files. If Birla is culpable for the working of those under him and pushing his company’s cause, the PM is just as culpable. The CBI may have spread its wings, but by closing its eyes to the evidence against the Prime Minister it has shown that it is a long way from leaving its cage.