The Prime Minister's Office will be keenly watching the developments in Supreme Court today.
All eyes will be on the Supreme Court today as it examines the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI's status report on the coal scam.
The status report was filed on October 22, a week after the CBI accused one of India's top industrialists Kumar Mangalam Birla of illegally bagging a coal mining license that was cleared by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The CBI sources say the status report gives details of the controversial FIR filed against Mr Birla, chairman of the $40 billion Aditya Birla Group, former Coal Secretary PC Parakh and the "competent authority" mentioned but not named by the investigating agency.
Dr Singh last week said he is not above law and is willing to answer all questions. "If there is anything that the CBI, or for that matter anyone, wants to ask, I have nothing to hide," he said. (
PM willing to be questioned, but will that happen?)
The Prime Minister's Office has maintained that the contract given to Mr Birla to mine from a state-owned coal block in 2005 was "entirely appropriate."
Meanwhile, a series of letters has exposed how politicians targeted Mr Parakh when he was the Coal Secretary during the years of the CBI probe.
Mr Parakh's letter to the Prime Minister in 2005, found by the CBI, warned that the Coal Ministry, then headed by Jharkhand leader Shibu Soren, was "run by the mafia." (
Read)
NDTV has now accessed a trail of letters which show the extent to which MPs, MLAs and even Coal Minister Shibu Soren demanded special favours from the Coal Ministry and the state-run industries under it. (
Coal scam: the Parakh letter wars)
When the favours were refused, the politicians harassed and even threatened Mr Parakh.