In an order running into over 400 pages, the Court has now held that the accused company did make misrepresentations and dishonestly induced the Government of India.
“The intention to defraud on the part of accused persons is writ large on the face of record. It is also clear that all the acts committed by the accused persons have been fraudulently done with a dishonest intention. But for the deception and resulting dishonest and fraudulent inducement caused to the Screening Committee, the MoC and thus to the Govt. of India, there would have been no allocation of coal block to the accused company,” the Court noted.
On the role of the public servants, the Court said that they must be liable for their actions and even though the guidelines issued by the MoC to govern the allocation of captive coal blocks may not be termed as law under Article 13 of the Constitution, they were binding upon the officers.
“By no stretch of imagination, the accused MoC officers can claim that even though the guidelines were issued by them intimating the public at large as to how captive coal blocks shall be allocated but while exercising the said discretion they were not bound to follow the said guidelines. In fact the said guidelines in no way took away the discretion either from the MoC officers or from the Screening Committee but simply regulated the exercise of such discretion so vested in them, lest their actions may venture into the arena of unreasonableness, arbitrariness or in any sort of illegality,” the Court underlined.
It added that allocation of coal block to an ineligible company is against public interest and the actions of the three officers conclusively show that their efforts were to somehow recommend allocation of the coal block in favour of JLD.
Source: Barandbench
