BJP demands PM’s resignation in Coal Scam

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Today, the Attorney General confessed in the Supreme Court that there was something wrong in the allocation of coal blocks since 2005. This is what precisely we were saying and what our complaint is,” BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.
“We took decision in good faith but something turned out to be wrong,” Attorney General GE Vahanvati told a three-judge bench headed by Justice RM Lodha.

“In hindsight, we can say something has gone wrong and some correction is required to be done,” he said, virtually accepting that mistakes were committed by the government in coal blocks allocation.

Vahanvati’s response came after the bench observed that the exercise could have been done in a ‘far better manner’.

“Everything could have been done in more refined and better manner. I accept my lordships view,” the Attorney General further said.

The bench asked Vahanvati about the Centre’s stand on de-allocation of certain coal blocks.

In response, Vahanvati submitted that the government would make its stand clear on the issue next week.

The Attorney General had in September 2013 submitted that coal blocks allocation was merely a letter of intent and does not confer any right to the companies over the natural resource which is decided by the state government.

He had contended that decision of coal blocks allocation to companies is only the first stage and firms get rights over coal only when they start mining for which they have to take various clearances.

The mining states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, however, had told the Apex Court that coal blocks allocation was ‘entirely controlled and regulated’ by the Centre and they only played a minimal role in the whole exercise.