Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal, former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda are among those facing trial in the case.
A Special Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of the coal blocks allocation scam case till June 30.
A special judge, hearing this case, was unhappy with the fact that a junior advocate had tried to contact him personally. The advocate
repeatedly apologized to the judge inside the courtroom.
Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal, former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda are among those facing trial in the case.
The coal allocation scam relates to the central government's allocation of the nation's coal deposits to public sector entities (PSEs) and private companies. In a draft report issued in March 2014, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) office accused the Government of India of allocating coal blocks in an inefficient manner between 2004 and 2009.
During the summer of 2012, the then opposition BJP filed a complaint, which resulted in a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into whether the allocation of the coal blocks was in fact influenced by corruption.
The essence of the CAG's argument is that the Centre had the authority to allocate coal blocks by a process of competitive bidding, but chose not to. As a result, both public sector enterprises (PSEs) and private firms paid less than they might have otherwise.
In its draft report in March 2014, the CAG estimated that the "windfall gain" to the allocatees was Rs.10673 billion or USD 170 billion.
The CAG Final Report tabled in Parliament put the figure at Rs.1856 billion or USD 29 billion)
On August 27, 2012, then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh read a statement in Parliament rebutting the CAG's report, both in its reading of the law and in the alleged cost of the government's policies.
While the initial CAG report suggested that coal blocks could have been allocated more efficiently, resulting in more revenue to the government, at no point did it suggest that corruption was involved in the allocation of coal.
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