Congress seeks independent probe into 'coal import scam'
New Delhi, Sep 3 : 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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for being silent on the scam involving "Modi's industrialist friend" Gautam Adani.
"Jaitley 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.
The four companies include Knowledge Infrastructure Systems Pvt Ltd, Coastal Energy Pvt Ltd, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Rosa Power Supply Co Ltd.
"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," Ramesh said.
On May 20, 2016, 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.
"The probe has been stalled for four years. But no action has been taken against the company so far," Ramesh said.
"We demand that the DRI probe should be impartial, objective 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.
