Congress demands independent probe into coal scam involving 'Modi's friend' Adani
New Delhi, Sep 3 : Taking the attack further against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over crony-capitalism, the Congress on Monday targeted the centre over a stalled probe against the Adani Group and demanded a time-bound, independent probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into an alleged Rs 29,000-crore scam involving over-valuation of coal imports.
Days after Adani Group moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash all Letters Rogatory (LRs) issued by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the Congress launched a frontal attack on the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for being silent on the scam involving "Modi's industrialist friend" Gautam Adani.
"Jailtley writes blogs on every issue, but he is silent on this. He should write a blog on this. He doesn't have the power to take any action," said Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh.
Earlier, a Singapore court had rejected Adani Global's plea, seeking a stay to produce documents pertaining to coal imports to India mostly from Indonesia. After that, the group moved the Bombay High Court on August 28.
The DRI had alleged that the companies inflated the price of coal they were importing from Indonesia to siphon off money abroad and to avail higher power tariff compensation.
"In October 2014, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence announced that there was a huge scam on coal import and a probe was initiated on the over-invoicing of import of coal. On March 31, 2016, DRI gave a new statement that 40 companies are involved in this scam and it is worth Rs 29,000 crore," said Ramesh.
In September 2017, a PIL was filled at the Delhi High Court by an NGO run by (Advocate) Prashant Bhushan and it demanded a Special Investigative Team (SIT) probe.
"On March 9, 2018, DRI in a litigation in the Delhi High Court said there was no need for an SIT and that it was probing the 40 companies and showcause notices were issued to four companies," he said, adding the companies given notices belonged to Gautam Adani, Anil Ambani and the Essar group. Seventy per cent coal import in our country is done by Adani Group of Companies, he said.
"Adani Group filed a litigation in the Singapore court urging the documents, which are available with SBI (State Bank of India) Singapore branch, on the issue should not be given to the Indian government," he said.
On May 20, 2016, the then Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia (now Finance Secretary) wrote to SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya saying the bank should provide those documents to DRI so that the probe could be completed, he said.
"After four days, she replied to Adhia saying the documents can't be provided because it was against Singapore law," the Congress leader added.
Taking a dig at Modi, Ramesh said the Prime Minister went to Singapore three times in four years but could not get the documents.
"Did the PM raise this issue with them? We want to ask him even after meeting Singapore Prime Minister (Li Hsein Loong) four times, why he couldn't get those documents from Singapore SBI. It is not a Singapore government-run organisation. Even Singapore PM came to India once. They have a good rapport," he said.
"The probe has been stalled for four years. But no action has been taken against the company so far," Ramesh said. He also stated that the CBI had registered an FIR in the case on January 22 this year.
He asked the Prime Minister what action had he taken to get those papers from Singapore SBI. "They will keep writing letters but nothing will happen to the investigation because it is a case of crony capitalism," Ramesh said.
"We demand the the DRI probe should be impartial and time-bound. The government should talk to the Singapore government and all papers should be provided to the DRI," he said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
