Row over coal Ordinance; Supreme Court rejects Centre's pleas

In a setback to Centre, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed its plea for transfer of all the cases, pending before various high courts against the coal ordinance, to the apex court saying "a litigant has the right to ask for quashing of the provision in the ordinance."

There are total five petitions challenging the government's ordinance on auctioning of coal blocks have been pending in Delhi, Calcutta and Madhya Pradesh high courts.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India HL Dattu rejected the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi's submission that if the high courts' pass different orders, it would be difficult for the government to go ahead with the auction process to meet the deadline of March 31, 2015.

He argued that the government has to comply with the Apex Court's directions while holding the allocation of coal blocks and referred to the plea of BLA Power in MP high court saying that the company is the sister concerned of the prior allottee BLA Industries and not eligible to take part in the tender process. BLA Industries had failed to deposit the additional levy of Rs 295 per metric tonne in terms of the court's earlier decision after cancellation of the block.

The court also rejected Centre's appeal against the Madhya Pradesh high court's order, which allowed BLA power to participate in the auction process of Gotitioria East and Gotitoria West Coal Mines and restrained the Centre from taking any final decision till the next date of hearing on February 12.