Power companies will be eyeing with bated breath the Supreme Court decision, which will be deciding the fate of 218 coal blocks allocated illegally to companies by the Centre. The apex court on August 25 had held that all coal blocks allocations since 1993 by various regimes at the Centre have been made illegally and arbitrarily on 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”. The bench of chief justice has further stated that entire allocation of coal blocks as recommended by the Screening Committee from July 14, 1993, in 36 meetings and the allocation made through the government dispensation route suffered from the vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws.
Earlier, the apex court reserved the judgement into whether it would cancel the award of 218 coal blocks it had ruled illegal. The blocks include about 40 that are producing coal, estimated to have a capacity of about 9 percent of the 566 million tonnes India produced last year and the government claimed that Rs 2 lakh crore investments have been made altogether.
It has been reported that the government is working out to meet the exigencies that could arise from the final court order and the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had told the court that if coal block allocations are cancelled, the government was ready to re-auction the blocks.