Parakh to be questioned by CBI tomorrow

Parakh, who retired as coal secretary in 2005, has been accused of abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco, a company of Aditya Birla Group.

Summary

Parakh, who retired as coal secretary in 2005, has been accused of abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco.

Former coal secretary P C Parakh will appear before the CBI for questioning in connection with the coal blocks allocation scam Thursday, the probe agency said Tuesday.

Parakh, who retired as coal secretary in 2005, has been accused of abusing his official position to grant a coal block to Hindalco, a company of Aditya Birla Group. The CBI also plans to finalise its investigations into the 13 FIRs, including that against Hindalco and Jindals, within next fortnight.

The CBI served a fresh notice to Parakh for appearing on May 1 after he had expressed his inability to appear on April 25. Last year, the agency had registered a case against Parakh, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Manglam Birla and unnamed officials of Hindalco and coal ministry. The CBI alleged that during 2005, these persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and Parakh had abused his position and showed undue favour to the Orissa-based firm in the allocation of Talabira II and Talabira III coal blocks. The move to question Parakh comes after former minister of state for coal Dasari Narayan Rao and the Prime Minister’s Adviser T K A Nair were questioned by the CBI.

Parakh was in news recently for his book on the coal blocks allocation in which he had questioned the rationale of the CBI to name him or Kumar Manglam Birla. He also questioned the decision-making of the agency chief in not naming PM Manmohan Singh as an accused as the coal ministry was under Singh’s direct charge when Talabira-II coal block was allotted to Hindalco.

comments powered by Disqus

Parakh to be questioned by CBI tomorrow