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CBI may quiz UP chief secretary in coal scam

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is likely to get singed further in the coal scam as the name of another senior bureaucrat has cropped up. The high-ranking official Jawed Usmani, a 1978 batch UP cadre IAS, handled matters relating to coal in the PMO as joint secretary (JS) from 2004 to 2007. He is now the chief secretary of UP.

Sources say the CBI could question Usmani on his role in the coal block allocations being scrutinised by the agency. For that, the CBI would have to seek the UP government’s approval.

This could prove a major embarrassment for the Akhilesh Yadav regime regardless of whether or not it gives CBI the sanction for questioning the head of the state bureaucracy.

The CBI has registered several cases related to coal block allotments during 2006-09 for alleged misrepresentation of facts by the beneficiaries while applying for the blocks. During this period, 68 coal blocks were allotted to 151 companies and files of some of them had gone missing. The BJP has been demanding prime minister Manmohan Singh’s resignation over the issue as he held charge of the coal ministry during the period in question.

According to the reply a Lucknow resident has received from the PMO in response to his RTI query about work distribution in the PMO, Usmani had joined the PMO as Joint Secretary on July 12, 2004. He was given charge of coal and mines on August 10, 2004. He was also made incharge of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which account for a large number of the impugned coal block allotments.

Vini Mahajan, a Punjab cadre IAS officer, then director in the PMO, was assigned to assist Usmani in June 2005, according to the RTI reply. In February 2006, she was given charge of coal and several other departments under Usmani. Interestingly, when she became JS in the PMO on February 27, 2007, coal related matters were transferred to her from Usmani.

The CBI has already questioned Vini Mahajan. Sources say Usmani has managed to avoid the CBI lens hitherto due to the Samajwadi Party’s relations with the UPA regime, particularly SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s personal equation with the PM.

Source: DNA