CVC seeks SC clarification on sharing confidential information

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on November 12 the Central Vigilance Commission's (CVC) application seeking clarification whether it could share, with CBI's former special director MLSharma, the confidential reports on coal block scam that it had submitted to the top court in sealed cover.

The coal bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur. Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice A.K.Sikri had appointed the Central Bureau of Investigation official M.L.Sharma to inquire whether the meetings that the then agency chief Ranjit Sinha had with the accused in coal block allocation scam in any way impacted the investigations or their final outcome.

The CVC has sought the clarification pointing to the "confidentiality" of the information sought by Sharma and the "nature and scope of the inquiry" to be undertaken by him as ordered by the apex court by its May 14, 2015 order.

The apex court by its September 14 order had allowed Sharma to access whatever records he felt necessary for the purposes of undertaking his inquiry.

Sharma, in a September 28 communication, asked the CVC to make available to him its comments on the investigation by the CBI in each of the 254 coal blocks. He has also asked the CVC to provide him the correspondence that might have been exchanged between it and the CBI on the subject.

The report sought by Sharma from the CVC relates to one that the vigilance watchdog had submitted to the apex court in sealed cover after scrutinising the CBI investigation into each of 254 coal blocks whose allocation was under cloud. It had undertaken the screening of the CBI probe into the coal block allocation cases following the apex court's March 28, 2014 directions.