SHILLONG: Former Joint Secretary of the Union Ministry of Coal and present Meghalaya Additional Chief Secretary, K.S. Kropha, and five others were summoned as accused in a coal blocks allocation case by a special court in New Delhi on Friday.
Incidentally, when sought for his response on the matter, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma refused to comment.
Kropha is also heading the Committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal to monitor the ban on coal mining in Meghalaya.
Besides Kropha, the court also summoned as accused former Coal Secretary H.C. Gupta and K.C. Samaria, the then Director CA-I Section of the Ministry of Coal.
The Court said that Kropha, who was Member Secretary of the Screening Committee, and Gupta, then Chairman of the Screening Committee, were responsible to ensure that all necessar precautions were adopted as expected to be undertaken to ensure reasonable safeguards.
When queried on whether Kropha should be removed from the Committee formed by the NGT to assess the coal stock in the State, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma refused to comment on the matter.
“This is not an isolated case and there are many such cases which are under the scrutiny of the judiciary,” Sangma said.
“We should not jump into conclusion and pronounce anyone as convicted while normal procedure of law is enforced,” the Chief Minister said, while adding that the judicial system of the country had its own means of proceeding further.