Birla gets industry support

12 March 2015
The Economic Times

Mumbai: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and industry leaders on Wednesday supported Hindalco, whose chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has been summoned to a CBI court in relation to the coal block allocation case. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh has also been summoned in connection with the case.

In a statement, CII said that “while the court is within its rights to proceed on a legal course, industry would like to see that investor and the business community at large do not get the wrong signal on such matters and the way these are handled.”

“Such judicial orders c;reate uncertainty and anxiety in the minds of investors and dissuade businesses from investing in the country and take forward the ‘Make in India’ initiative,” the industry body said in the statement.

Last year, the CAG had filed a report accusing the government of allocating coal blocks between 2004 and 2009 in an inefficient manner. It said the government did not allocate the blocks through competitive bidding as a result of which companies paid less than what they were supposed to, thus making collective gains of billions of rupees.

“From what I’ve understood, Mr Birla went to represent his case. Businessmen have the absolute right to make representations if they feel aggrieved of government decisions and policies. All of us have that right and certainly we can request the government to also see our point of view before making decisions,” said RC Bhargava, chairman of India’s biggest passenger carmaker Maruti Suzuki.