Congress flags Rs 29,000 cr coal scam again, demands SIT probe

The Congress party and former Union environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday demanded a probe into the Rs 29,000 cr coal scam by the Special Investigation Team (SIT). He also asserted to probe the allegations of 40 Indian companies, private companies, who had inflated the price of coal imported from the country Indonesia.

Mr Ramesh told The Hindu, “among the prominent companies that have been issued show-cause notices by the Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) is Prime Minister’s favourite industrialist Gautam Adani. It also includes the capitalist associated with the Rafale deal, Anil Ambani… Essar is also there…We must also remember that 70% of the coal that is imported is done through the Adani group,” said Mr. Ramesh.

In order to defend the charges of Mr Jairam Ramesh, the spokesperson of the Adani group told The Hindu,  “The Adani Group does not believe in wrongdoings. But since the matter is subjudiced, we do not wish to comment.”

The Coal scam has always been in the news since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to light, in the year 2014, Minister of Finance had launched an investigation into this alleged coal scam,  “over-invoicing of coal imports” by 40 companies since 2005-06 for a period of, at least, five years.

When Minister Jairam was asked what UPA government did when they were in power, he said, “A scam is a scam and there should be a thorough probe on when and how it happened…The charges are based on a preliminary Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI’s)  inquiry and the law should be the same for everyone.”

The Adani group had approached the Bombay high court for a stay on the DRI’s request to examine the documents of alleged coal scam, which was reportedly imported from Indonesia through Singapore based firms.

The Congress party did not stop and doing their job to raise voice against the corruption. They also have launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley being silent over the Rs 2,900 coal scam, involving their industrialist friend Gautam Adani.  In the last one month, the Congress has carefully tried to build a narrative of corruption against Indian  Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government by focussing on the Rafale deal, the C&AG (comptroller and auditor general) report on Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) and is now targeting the Adani group.

Former union minister further quoted as saying to The Hindu, “For the last three years, we have been consistently raising issues that makes a complete mockery of the PM’s claim that he is providing a clean and transparent administration. Whether it is the GSPC scam, the Rafale deal or the deal concerning power companies, there is abundant evidence to show that certain favourite industrialists have been given undue advantage.”

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