New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday closed the case filed in 1997 relating to alleged political corruption in allowing US energy major Enron to set up Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi closed the case while taking into a note of the inordinate delay in the case.
Maharashtra government had in February requested the apex court to end the proceedings which have been pending for the past several years. US-based Enron and its associate Dabhol Power Corporation had set up the US$ 3 billion 2,550 megawatt power project in Maharashtra in 1996 after signing the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) in 1993.
In 1997, the apex court had admitted the petition of the Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) that had challenged a Bombay High Court order upholding the PPA and issued a notice to the MSEB on the government’s role and its officials in signing of the PPA.
The top court had earlier asked Maharashtra government to apprise it about the steps taken after five-member Energy Review Committee headed by Madhav Godbole recommended probe into the alleged corruption by top politicians and bureaucrats in Dabhol power plant.
Enron had pulled out of the Dabhol power plant and went bankrupt. The plant was shut down in 2001. Godbole report filed in 2001 was critical of former Chief Minister Sharad Pawar, who was with the Congress then, the 13-day BJP-led Central government which reworked the Dabhol power plant deal in 1996, then Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray and his government in Maharashtra headed by Manohar Joshi.
The committee had said that there were allegations of money being paid by Enron to the politicians and bureaucrats for clinching the deal.
