New Delhi: Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla met Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday evening to discus the “FIR with the FM among other issues”. The meeting comes days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a first information report against Mr Birla, his company Hindalco and former Coal Secretary PC Parakh in the coal block allocation scam.
After meeting the Finance Minister, Mr Birla said, ” I have done nothing wrong. I’m not worried about the FIR.”
Mr Birla also met the Revenue Secretary.
Mr Birla, chairman of the $40 billion Aditya Birla Group, has been accused by the CBI of cheating and conspiracy. It has alleged that he was shown “undue favour” in a coal block being allotted to Hindalco in 2005
India Inc is up in arms and has warned that the CBI’s move against Mr Birla, a leading industrialist with business interests in 40 countries, could dampen investor sentiment at a time when the country faces an economic crisis.
Commenting on the action by the CBI, Kris Gopalakrishnan, president of industry body Confederation of Indian Industries or CII said “while it is absolutely within CBI’s rights to proceed against any person to ensure that the law of the land is preserved, irrespective of the stature of the person, it is desirable to ensure that all facts of the case are laid upfront before proceeding against respected and reputed individuals.”
In a statement, Naina Lal Kidwai, president of industry body Ficci said, “business leaders cannot be made scapegoats of mere suspicion and misconstrued actions.”
She also stressed that such actions will have far reaching effects on bureaucratic decision making and it will impede critical decisions.
“He is straight as an arrow…ludicrous that an FIR has been filed against Kumar Mangalam Birla,” HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, said adding, “Our system is such that the biggest fraudsters go scot-free, innocents are harassed.”
Commerce minister Anand Sharma tried to reach out when he said in an interview to NDTV, “if every (policy) decision made is questioned, if every person is questioned, if an atmosphere of fear is created, this country will suffer.”
He also said that that there was nothing wrong in corporate leaders pleading their case before ministers. “It is their right,” Mr Sharma said, referring to Mr Birla having presented his case to the Prime Minister in 2005 on why his company should be given a mining licence.
The matter is hyper-sensitive for the government as Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh headed the coal ministry for a portion of the period being investigated by the CBI. He held charge of the coal ministry in 2005, when the coal block in Odisha was allotted to Hindalco, one of the largest aluminium makers in Asia.
Hindalco has said in a statement, “Every process required for coal allocation in line with government regulations completely followed.”