Coal block allocations declared illegal, over 200 cancelled

What happened

Between 1993 and 2010, successive governments allocated captive coal blocks to private and public companies through a screening committee, without auction or transparent criteria. The pace of allocations accelerated sharply after 2004, a period during which the coal portfolio was for several years held by the Prime Minister himself.

What the official record found

In August 2012 the Comptroller and Auditor General reported that the failure to auction the blocks had conferred windfall gains on allottees, which it estimated at ₹1.86 lakh crore. On 25 August 2014, the Supreme Court held that the entire allocation process from 1993 onwards had been “arbitrary and illegal”, and on 24 September 2014 it cancelled 204 of the 218 blocks allocated in that period.

Where it stands

This is one of the few major scandals where the illegality of the government process was confirmed by the Supreme Court itself. Special CBI courts have since convicted companies, their officers, and former coal ministry officials in multiple individual block cases, while other trials continue. The allocations spanned governments of more than one party over 17 years — the record notes the period, not a single owner.