Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday cancelled all the coal blocks allocated since 1993, except four vested with the NTPC and other public sector undertakings.
"The court has cancelled all the allocations except four," Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi told reporters outside court.
Quashing the allocation of 214 coal blocks, the apex court said that there is no need to save the allocations as they were done in arbitrary manner.
Coal blocks allocated to SAIL, NTPC and two for Ultra Mega Power Projects are saved from being quashed.
The court has levied a penalty of Rs 295 per tonne penalty on all cancelled block holders. SC has granted six months "breathing time" to companies whose blocks were cancelled to wind up business.
The court today cancelled allocations of 168 blocks with immediate effect and asked holders of 46 operational blocks to file reply within 6 months and said that government can auction blocks post March.
The apex court on August 25 had held that all coal blocks allocations since 1993 by various regimes at theCentre have been made illegally and arbitrarily.
The apex court, which had used almost all terms to condemn the procedures adopted by 36 screening committee meetings since 1993, however, had stopped short of cancelling them saying, "what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled."
The court, which examined the allocation of 218 blocks in pre-auction era till 2010, had held that they were done in an illegal manner by an "ad-hoc and casual" approach "without application of mind" and "Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily" due to lack of fair and transparent procedure resulting in "unfair distribution" of the "national wealth" -- coal -- "which is king and paramount Lord of industry."
With Agency Inputs
