Supreme Court allows Delhi High Court to hear appeals in coal scam cases, relaxes 12-year-old order
The Supreme Court on Wednesday relaxed its 12-year-old order that mandated all appeals against trial court orders in coal block allotment scam cases to be filed only before the apex court. The court said that the prosecution and accused can now move the Delhi High Court challenging acquittals or convictions recorded by the special judge.
Hearing the long-pending appeals in the coal scam cases, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana observed: “Why did the Supreme Court invite such a burden on itself? There may have been certain concerns at some point of time. But can the Supreme Court denude the high court’s constitutionally conferred powers to hear appeals against trial court orders? Powers of the high court to hear appeals against trial court is part of the basic structure.”
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for some of the accused, argued that the Supreme Court should not be the first forum of appeal against trial court orders. However, the Supreme Court-appointed special public prosecutor R S Cheema submitted that trials in two-thirds of the cases have concluded and that the restriction on approaching the high court against interim orders of the special judge should continue.
The bench agreed with Cheema but said that in cases where the trial court has recorded either conviction or acquittal, the appeal must be filed before the Delhi High Court.
In September 2014, the Supreme Court had cancelled 204 of the 218 coal block allocations and directed that all appeals against framing of charge, quashing of cases, and bail petitions must be filed only before the Supreme Court and not the Delhi High Court. That restriction was imposed to prevent accused from delaying trials.
Sibal, who was a minister in the Congress-led UPA government when the coal scam and 2G scam cases came to light, told the court that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had made an omnibus calculation about alleged loss to the exchequer without quantifying loss attributable to individual coal blocks. “We have challenged the basis on which such calculations were made by the CAG. Moreover, we have also questioned whether mere allotment of coal blocks would amount to corrupt practice without any mining having taken place at all,” Sibal said.
The top court asked Cheema and the counsel for accused to help categorize the bunch of cases for hearing from August 18.
