Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has asked for a status report on all missing files.
The coal ministry has asked its officials to prepare microfilms of all crucial files that contain documents on the coal blocks allocation scam to prevent the disappearance of vital evidence.
"All crucial files are going to be microfilmed,'' Piyush Goyal, the new coal minister told NDTV, adding, "Ministry officials have now gathered all files related to the allocations that were initially thought to be missing. I have asked for a status report on all files which are still missing, and the papers that are missing in those files.''
The alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks became one of the important corruption cases that singed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. Reports that important files pertaining to the scam surfaced last year, lending credence to the Opposition charge that there was something amiss in the case.
Opposition parties led by the BJP disrupted parliamentary proceedings, forcing Manmohan Singh, the then prime minister, to intervene on the standoff by issuing a statement in the Rajya Sabha on September 3. He assured the House that the government had nothing to hide.
He told the Rajya Sabha that over a lakh files relating to controversial coal block allocations had already been handed to the CBI and efforts were being made to find the rest.
"If the records are found missing, the government will carry out a thorough investigation and ensure that the guilty are brought to book," he said.
In an affidavit filed a few weeks earlier, the Centre informed the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the case, that the CBI, which was investigating the scam, needed 43 files, of which all but seven had either been located, or delivered to the CBI.