The Supreme Court in the case Manohar Lal Sharma v Union of India and Common Cause vs Union of India observed that the stages of investigation in different cases relating to coal block allocations by 15th July and the court further directed the Central Government to file an affidavit of the same.
A three-judge Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha had cancelled all but 4 of 218 allocations calling them arbitrary, illegal and amounting to unfair distribution of national wealth The decision had come in response to PILs filed by NGO ‘Common Cause’. the legality of allocation of coal blocks to private companies from 1993 onwards, was being challenged by the Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma. The Coal allocated between 1993 and 2010 by the Central Government, Supreme Court had in August 2014 quashed 214 coal block allocations.
the Directorate of Enforcement not to transfer or remove any Supervising Officer or Investigating Officer associated with the coal block cases without leave of the Court and reiterated the said order on 09.27.2019, the order was directed by the top court on 12.272018.
the bench further orally observed while allowing the IA 10 years working on one particular issue it also doesn’t look nice and why officer should suffer for their promotions.
why investigations are not complete yet, Mr. Bhushan urged the Court to ask the Enforcement Directorate as it has been 10 years since the FIRs were registered, Mr. Bhushan while arguing.
the application seeking repatriation of some Enforcement Directorate officers including 4 joint director level officers and 3 IO level officers investigating the coal block cases was further being allowed by the Court.
the reason why the court had directed the Government to give a list of officers and then chose the officers who to handle the investigation was due to the fear of the government influencing the investigation was being submitted by the counsel, Advocate Prashant Bhushan in the plea.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the petitioner in the plea.
The Bench comprising of CJI NV Ramana, Justice JK Maheshwari and the Justice Hima Kohli observed and noted that the investigation is still not complete in many cases and the Bench further issued the direction pursuant to submissions made by Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the petitioners that even though 10 years have passed since the FIRs were registered.
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