FIR against industrialist KM Birla

In a fresh FIR against former coal secretary PC Parekh and industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, the CBI registered on Tuesday, the 14th FIR in its ongoing coal scam, along with raids at several places.

The case is being directly monitored by the Supreme Court. In connection with the case, CBI teams are also raiding various places including Delhi, Mumbai,Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar and Hyderabad. The two have been accused of criminal conspiracy and corruption in connection with alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks eight years back. The 46-year-old head of the Aditya Birla group will be called in for questioning, CBI sources said.  The agency has booked Birla as a representative of Aditya Birla Group and his group company, aluminium maker Hindalco, for alleged corruption in the allocation of Talabira two coal blocks in Odisha which was allotted to it on November 10, 2005, the sources said.  The blocks were allocated for power production during a meeting of the screening committee, they said. "CBI registers a fresh case in alleged irregularities in coal scam against the then Coal Secretary, M/s Hindalco, representative of Adita Birla Group, unknown persons and officials," agency spokesperson Kanchan Prasad said.  The $40 billion (about Rs. 2.45 lakh crore) conglomerate has denied receiving any FIR and refuted allegations of any wrongdoing.  The CBI action had an immediate fallout with Hindalco shares dropping in the morning by 1.27 percent. Some of the other Birla companies were also affected.  Parekh, who was Coal Secretary at the time of this allocation, faces charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act as also criminal conspiracy and other offences.  CBI has been at the receiving end in the Supreme Court which has pased tough questions on why coal fields were allocated to private players without a transparent bidding process, the slow pace of probe as also on missing files.