Shillong, April 22: The court-appointed committee on coal issue headed by retired justice BP Katakey said on Saturday that there is a need to institute a probe into the missing coal of around 17 lakh metric tonnes out of the 32 lakh metric tonnes.
Katakey on Friday reviewed the auction of extracted coal.
The state government in an affidavit before the Supreme Court had mentioned about the 32 lakh metric tonnes of coal which were already extracted and meant for auction.
According to Katakey, around 15 lakh metric tonnes are available for auction and not 32 lakh.
There are only two possibilities on the remaining 17 lakh metric tonnes of coal: either it never existed as the government exaggerated the quantity and made it 32 lakh to carry on with illegal mining or the 17 lakh is missing or misused, Katakey said.
“I will make a request to the High Court for an inquiry into the matter”, Katakey added.
