Essar Group was in touch with ex-finance minister, planted questions in Parl: NGO to SC

New Delhi: Essar Group was allegedly in touch with the then Finance Minister over the issue of Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted by the erstwhile UPA government for clearances on coal allocation issues, an NGO has said in a PIL before the Supreme Court.  The then Finance Minister showed his ‘annoyance’ that his request to appoint a person in the Group had not yet been implemented, according to an e-mail cited in the additional affidavit filed by NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL). It claimed that Essar Group was not only “planting questions” in Parliament, but “was also getting MPs to write letters to the Prime Minister”. Referring to the alleged inter-office e-mails of the group, the affidavit alleged that senior official of the corporate house had met the then Finance Minister for an early date for the GoM. Seeking a court-monitored probe by an SIT or the CBI into the alleged high level of nexus, the CPIL said that it has come in possession of several other internal e-mails and documents of Essar Group. It claimed that those e-mails prima facie show that one of the senior officials of the Ministry of Steel had “official dealing” with Essar Group and he used his official position to strongly push for Essar’s business interests within the government. It alleged that the official was also informing Essar about the internal deliberations in the Steel Ministry. “This shows how major corporate groups like Essar bestow favours on senior ministers for getting benefits in return, including on issues concerning natural resources like coal which are pending before a high level group of Union Ministers,” it said. The Supreme Court had earlier sought response from the Centre and others on the plea seeking a court-monitored probe into the Essar email-leak case allegedly pointing to a “political-bureaucratic-corporate nexus”. PTI