Another CAG report had pointed at Manmohan

A year after the CAG's Coalgate report was tabled in Parliament in August 2012, the auditor came out with a report which, while focusing on revenues of the Jharkhand government, dealt with illegalities in coal allocation in some detail.

The report, which escaped attention despite having been tabled in Parliament, accused both the Centre and then-harkhand CM Madhu Koda of allegedly tampering wi th the list of recommendations made by a screening committee for allocation of six coal blocks in the state.

The CAG report revealed that in 2007, the coal ministry, which was directly under thenPM Manmohan Singh, had okayed the alteration made by Koda to allot coal mines to companies which were not approved by the screening committee set up by the Jharkhand government. Further, it made additions of its own at the final stage.

In the process, the screening committee, which was supposed to be the chief mechanism for determining the eligibility of companies vying for precious coal deposits, was rendered irrelevant. The screening committee went through 210 applications to approve 10 of them.

"When the recommendation of the subgroup (screening committee) was sent (June 2007) to the then CM for his approval, he modified and altered the names and made final recommendations to the Centre though no reason was assigned," the federal auditor's report said. The CAG report, No.1 of 2013 of Jharkhand Revenue Sector, was tabled in Parliament in July 2013 as Jharkhand was then under President's rule. Koda's action was violative of the decision to give the screening committee final say in assessing eligibility but passed muster with the Centre.

The federal auditor questioned the rationale for inclusion of five new companies not recommended by the screening committee and exclusion of three companies recommended by the panel in allocation of the six coal blocks--Ganeshpur, Mahuagarthi, Patal East, Ashok Karkata, Seregartha and Amarkunda-Mugadangal.

Some of these coal blocks were allocated to Tata Steel, JAS Infrastructure, Essar Power, Arcelor Mittal India, GVK Powers and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt Ltd, which were not part of the original recommendations of the screening committee.

CAG sought a response from the state in September 2012 over the alterations made in the original recom mendation but the government did not reply. CAG finally wrote in its report, "The matter was reported to the government in September 2012. We have not received their reply (February 2013)." Koda, an independent MLA who became Jharkhand CM with the support of the Congress in 2006, was arrested on charges of money laundering in connection with the allocation of mines during his tenure. The Enforcement Directorate and CBI registered cases against him and attached properties worth hundreds of crores related to the scam.

The screening committee which had vetted the applications comprised secretary, department of industry; secretary, department of mines & geology; and secretary, department of energy to make recommendations on allotment of coal blocks.