The government faces new controversy over how it chose private players for coal blocks, a process indicted by the CBI as "arbitrary and flawed" in a report shared in the Supreme Court today.
"If we broadly find no procedure was followed, the entire allocation will be scrapped," the Supreme Court said.
The Prime Minister held direct charge of the Coal Ministry from 2006-2009, the period which was reviewed by the Supreme Court today.
The judges have asked the CBI chief, Ranjit Sinha, to testify in writing that he had not shared the status report with "the political executive" before it was given to the court.
The CBI has told the Supreme Court that during this time, valuable coal fields were assigned to companies whose financial track record was not checked, and who misrepresented crucial information.
"BJP had accused the PM in the allocation of coal blocks which resulted in a loss of Rs 1 lakh 85 thousand crores to the exchequer. The CBI filed its petition in the Supreme Court today. BJP has raised the issues in Parliament. The matter is a blow to the government," BJP's Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.
The government was first hit by allegations of "Coal-Gate" when its auditor said in March 2012 that the country lost 1.85 lakh crores because coal fields were allocated without a transparent bidding process.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who defended the government's policy in the Supreme Court today, said the CBI does not have "the final word" on the policy that was followed, and will file its defense by the next hearing on April 30.
The CBI began investigating "Coal-Gate" in May last year on the basis of a complaint filed by a BJP parliamentarian Prakash Javadekar. The Supreme Court, which is dealing with different public interest litigation appeals (PILs) on the coal controversy, had asked the CBI to share the early findings of its enquiry.