NEW DELHI: The government has decided to deallocate all the captive coal blocks which have not obtained environment clerance and in-principle forest clearances and has issued show-cause notice to allocatees of 61 such mines.

The move comes in the backdrop of the Supreme Court posing some tough questions on allocation process for coal blocks and questioning the Centre over the functioning of the screening committee that made allotment recommendations.

“The following coal blocks will be deallocated... coal blocks where environmental clearance and forest clearance stage-I (in-principle) have not been obtained,” S.K. Shahi, Director in the Coal Ministry, said in a letter to allocatees of 61 blocks.

Coal blocks, which are unexplored or partially explored at the time of allocation and where prospecting licence (PL) has not been obtained, will also be cancelled, it said.

The letter further added that in cases of coal blocks where PL has been issued but geological reports have not been prepared will also be cancelled.

Tata Steel, ArcelorMittal, Hindalco, Jindal Steel and Power, JSW Steel, Essar Power, Adani Power, Tata Power, GVK Power and Infrastructure, Ultratech Cement, Reliance Energy, Sterlite Energy and JP Associates are some of the allocatees who feature in the list of 61.

Some blocks, which are already under the scrutiny of CBI such as Mahan to Essar Power and Hindalco, Brinda Sasai and Meral to Abhijeet Infrastructure, Bander to AMR Iron and Steel, also figure in the list.

Fatehpur coal block, allocated to SKS Ispat & Power Ltd, the company allegedly linked to former Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay, is also a part of the list.

The allocatees have been given time till February 5 to obtain the requisite clearances and produce proofs in support of approvals.

“Within a week thereafter (after February 5), a decision for deallocation will be taken,” the letter said, adding that this notice supersedes all previous notices on the matter.

It also said that allocatees who have secured EC and FC Stage-I and have applied for FC stage-II (final clearance) have time till February 12 to submit their response along with documentary evidence to their claims.

The list of 61 blocks include Kotre Basantpur and Pachmo and Ganeshpur blocks of Tata Steel, Seregarha to ArcelorMittal and GVK Power, Tubed to Hindalco and Tata Power and Lohara West and Lohara Extension to Adani Power.

Jindal Steel and Power’s 3 blocks -- Utkal B1, Gare Palma IV/6 and Jitpur also part of the 61. Rohne, jointly allocated to JSW Steel and Bhushan Power and Steel’s, too figure in the list.

Mandakini block to Monnet Ispat and Energy, Jindal Photo and Tata Power, Rampia and Dipside of Rampia blocks to Sterlite Energy, GMR Energy, Lanco, ArcelorMittal, Reliance Energy and Nabbharat Power are also in the list of 61 blocks.

Besides questioning the functioning of the screening committee on Wednesday, the Supreme Court was also critical of the Centre for its “laxity” in deallocating coal blocks from entities which held them for long without meeting necessary clearances. — PTI

AAP to take disciplinary action against Binny

Ghaziabad: The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday refuted the allegations levelled by its MLA Vinod Kumar Binny and said disciplinary action would be initiated against the legislator for “baseless accusations” against the party.

Addressing the media at AAP office here, senior leader Yogendra Yadav said the MLA was making “baseless accusations” against the party as he was denied a ticket for the Lok Sabha elections.

“The party’s Political Affairs Committee will initiate disciplinary action against Binny and accordingly a show-cause notice will be issued to him,” Yadav told reporters, adding that party members could have different opinion but AAP will not tolerate indiscipline.

The AAP MLA from Laxmi Nagar on Thursday accused the party of “cheating” people of Delhi by backtracking on its election promises and termed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal a “dictator”.

Binny addressed a press conference where he slammed the AAP leadership on a range of issues and said taking support of Congress to form the government was a “compromise on the party’s principles”.

“Today when Binny was speaking, it seemed that he was reading a script given to him by someone else. He has raised all those issue which the Leader of the Opposition Harsh Vardhan has been raising for the past few days.

“If he had any grievances against the party or its leaders, there are ways of expressing it. He could have taken up the issues in the party, but never did he raise such issues during any of the party meetings. It’s very sad,” Yadav said, adding that Binny should not put personal ambition before the people’s hopes and expectations.

Yadav said the party MLAs had met on January 14 to discuss issues and during the meeting, Binny did not raise a single point.

“Binny was a member of the screening committee during Delhi Assembly elections. He was present at all important meetings and if he had any problem he could have raised the issues on the party platform,” he said.

The senior AAP leader said that Binny was interested in ministerial berth and was keen to fight the Lok Sabha election from East Delhi. — PTI

Delhi HC restrains media from reporting allegations against ex-SC judge 

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday restrained the media from publishing or telecasting the allegations levelled against former Supreme Court judge Swatanter Kumar by a former law intern, who has accused him of sexual harassment.

Justice Manmohan, in an interim order, also restrained the telecast or print of photographs of Justice Kumar, and directed that photographs of his be removed from the Internet too.

Media organisations were directed to limit reporting to court orders only.

The court has posted the matter for hearing February 24.

Kumar filed a defamation case against one national daily, two TV news channels and the former intern. While the intern made allegations of sexual harassment, the media organisations reported the allegations. — IANS

SHIMLA: Under attack from the BJP on corruption charges, Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today filed three defamation cases against Arun Jaitley and other party leaders, accusing them of unleashing a malicious campaign against him and his family through media to tarnish his image.

The Congress leader said he has filed a defamation case under Section 499 of IPC against Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and former state Chief Minister P. K. Dhumal and two separate petitions against BJP MP Anurag Thakur and Arun Dhumal, son of P. K. Dhumal, in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Shimla, Jyotsana Dhadwal.

The CJM fixed the hearing on February 15.

Alleging political vendetta against him, 79-year-old Virbhadra Singh said it was not for the first time that he had been personally targeted by Dhumal.

He said that when he came to power there were numerous complaints against Dhumal and other BJP leaders. But he decided "not to continue the bad practice of political vendetta and victimisation started by Dhumal as he did not want make Himachal Pradesh another Punjab or Tamil Nadu. Not even a single case was registered against BJP leaders," he said.

Singh went to the districts courts near Chakkar accompanied by some ministers and supporters and after filing the defamation complaints addressed the media in the presence of ministerial colleagues, chairpersons of boards and corporation and other senior Congress leaders.

Singh claimed that during his first term, Dhumal implicated him in the Sagar Kattha case and the CD case was filed during the last term, but he was exonerated by the court both the times.

"The Dhumal Government submitted a 24-point charge sheet against me to the CBI in 1998. I was again given a clean chit by the agency after investigations at a time when NDA was in power at the Centre," he told reporters.

Jaitley had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alleging that Virbhadra Singh had taken bribe from a private power company and had demanded a CBI inquiry, calling it an "open- and- shut case of corruption", but the Chief Minister had denied the charges and threatened to sue him.

Jaitley had dared the CM to file a defamation case and had said he would cross examine him in court on each of the charges. — PTI

UNITED NATIONS: An Indian peacekeeping contingent in South Sudan came under fire as fighting erupted between local groups near a UN base in Malakal, requiring the soldiers to fire multiple rounds in order to protect civilians.

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said a young teenager seeking shelter at the Malakal base was killed by the bullets after gunfire entered the UN base there on January 14.

The mission said dozens of civilians and a UN military officer suffered gunshot wounds inside the base and received medical attention at the mission’s hospital.

There were no immediate details of the names of those killed and injured.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters at his briefing on Wednesday that this was not an attack on the UN compound but after fighting erupted between different groups nearby, live rounds and gunfire was coming into the compound.

The peacekeepers fired multiple rounds of gunfire to deter anyone engaged in fighting from coming too close to the UN base in order to protect civilians.

“The bulk of the peacekeepers (at the base) are from an Indian contingent and multiple rounds were fired to deter those that were fighting each other outside from coming closer to the compound, because of course, had they come closer, more fire could have entered into the compound,” Nesirky added.

Ban reiterated that those responsible for attacks against civilians, humanitarian workers and United Nations personnel will be held accountable.

While fighting has stopped in Malakal the situation remains fluid. The UN mission said sporadic gunfire can still be heard some distance from the UN base, where some 20,000 civilians are seeking protection.

The mission also continues to report loud explosions and gunfire in the vicinity of its base in Bor, where it is protecting 9,000 civilians within the UN base.

Last year, seven Indian soldiers had died in South Sudan.

In an attack in April, five Indian UNMISS peacekeepers were killed when they were ambushed by about 200 attackers near Jonglei State as they escorted a United Nations convoy.

Two UNMISS Indian Battalion troops were killed in action and one was injured on December 19 in Akobo following an assault on a UNMISS base. — PTI

NEW DELHI: HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor on Thursday issued a joint statement along with his wife in which the duo have stated that they are "happily married", but distressed by "some unauthorised tweets".

"We are distressed by the unseemly controversy that has arisen about some unauthorised tweets from our Twitter accounts," Tharoor said in a joint statement, which appeared on a Facebook page.

The controversy started after intimate messages, allegedly sent to him by a Pakistani woman journalist, were posted on his widely-followed Twitter account.

Tharoor's wife Sunanda claimed on the micro-blogging site that she had posted from her husband's account the allegedly private messages sent to him by Lahore-based journalist Mehr Tarar, to show the world "how she is stalking my husband".

"We wish to stress that we are happily married and intend to remain that way. Sunanda has been ill and hospitalised this week and is seeking rest. We would be grateful if the media respects our privacy," the statement said.

It further added that "distorted" versions of comments allegedly made by his wife Sunanda had appeared in the media.

"Various distorted accounts of comments allegedly made by Sunanda have appeared in the press. It appears that some personal and private comments responding to these unauthorised tweets — comments that were not intended for publication — have been misrepresented and led to some erroneous conclusions," the statement added.

The Twitter handle of Tharoor, one of the most popular Indian politicians on the micro-blogging site, was allegedly hacked yesterday.

The tweets instantly created a buzz on social media websites.

"Sorry folks, my @Twitter account has been hacked and will be temporarily deactivated. Bear with me while we solve this," his twitter page had read. — PTI

SRINAGAR: The judicial commission appointed by the Jammu and Kashmir Government to probe the killing of four youths in CRPF firing in Shopian last year has given three days' more time to the force to file their counter report in the case.

Justice (retd) M.L. Kaul, the head of the commission, yesterday accepted the CRPF plea seeking more time to file their counter report in the case.

"At the request of the Union of India counsel, time was granted and he was asked to file counter on January 18," an official spokesman said.

The commission will hold the next hearing on January 18.

Four persons were killed at Gagran in Shopian district on September 7, 2013, the date on which world-famous orchestra conductor Zubin Maestro performed at the famed Shalimar Gardens here.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had ordered a judicial probe into the killings after the CRPF claim that all the deceased were militants was challenged by the locals.

While the police admitted that there was no record of any involvement in militancy for three of the deceased local youths, they maintained that the fourth was a Pakistani militant.

The commission was appointed to probe the circumstances leading to the killing of the four youths and ascertain whether the deceased had been involved in militancy.

The commission has also been asked to fix responsibility for any misuse of authority by the CRPF personnel. — PTI