The fate of 218 coal blocks, which was allocated to companies illegally by the Centre, will be decided by the Supreme Court today.

The apex court will pronounce its verdict this afternoon on blocks whose allocation was declared illegal by it and in which government claimed that 2 lakh crore rupees investments have been made.

A bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha on August 25 had held that all coal blocks allocations since 1993 by various regimes at the Centre have been made illegally and arbitrarily.

The apex court had used almost all terms to condemn the procedures adopted by 36 screening committee meetings since 1993.

However, it had stopped short of cancelling them saying, what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled.

The court, which examined the allocation of 218 blocks in pre-auction era till 2010, had held that they were done in an illegal manner by an ad-hoc and casual approach without application of mind and Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily due to lack of fair and transparent procedure resulting in unfair distribution of the national wealth coal.