Kapil Sibal briefs PM on Supreme Court observations on CBI probe into Coalgate

NEW DELHI: A day after the Centre faced the ire of the Supreme Court for not helping CBI with documents in its probe into coal blocks allocation scam, Law Minister Kapil Sibal today briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the apex court's observations.

He also briefed the PM on the apex court's decision to leave it to Parliament to decide on the proposed law to make CBI autonomous and said it would review after a decision is taken.

Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy was also present in the briefing which took place soon after the meeting of the Union Cabinet.

Yesterday, the SC had also directed the government to file a comprehensive affidavit justifying allocation of 164 coal blocks.

The apex court, which perused the latest status report filed by CBI, had said the agency was "struggling" in its probe in the absence of documents not being supplied to it relating to the allocation of 204 coal blocks, out of which 40 have been de-allocated.

A bench headed by Justice R M Lodha had said there was "lack of transparency" in the coal blocks allocation and "there was no system in place to verify the application of the companies and working of the screening committee appears to be sketchy".

On the issue of CBI's autonomy, the SC had expressed satisfaction that the Centre has taken steps for amending the law to insulate the agency from extraneous influences.

"There is some positive beginning," the bench said.