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Journalism of Courage
The CBI on Friday registered two preliminary enquires in connection with the missing files on coal block allocations. The enquires have been divided into two periods one for the period between 1993 and 2005 and the other for the period between 2006 and 2009,according to officials.
The CBI will now start examining present and former coal ministry officials to understand the circumstances in which the files went missing. The decision to register a preliminary enquiry instead of an FIR was taken after a meeting between CBI and coal ministry officials where the two reconciled that there were 18-20 files missing.
After the meeting,it was decided to split the CBIs enquiry into two parts files relating to allocations done during the period spanning from 2006 to 2009,in which the CBI has registered 13 FIRs so far,and files related to the period between 1993 and 2005 in which no FIR has been registered yet.
CBI officials said it was decided to proceed with the preliminary enquiry as there was not enough material to register a regular case or FIR. During the analysis of documents and interactions with the coal ministry officials,the CBI found that some of the crucial files are not in existence.
As first reported by The Indian Express,the documents that the coal ministry has been unable to locate is the minutes of meeting of the 26th screening committee. After the discussion with the coal ministry officials,it appears that only draft minutes of the meeting were prepared and they were never finalised,said officials.
The coal ministry also said that they had even tried to trace these documents from other ministries and PSUs such as the Ministry of Steel,Coal India Limited,Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion,Central Mines Planning and Design Institute Limited,but could not trace them.
