Ready to face CBI, says Singh

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said he has nothing to hide in the coalgate scam and offered to face the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or “for that matter anybody”  in the probe into illegal allocation of coal block to Hindalco.

Singh, who has been under opposition attack after the filing of an FIR by the CBI against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh in a coal block allocation case, broke his silence for the first time since the controversy broke out 10 days ago.“I am not above the law of the land. If there is anything the CBI or, for that matter anybody, wants to ask me, I have nothing to hide,” he told reporters on board his special plane returning from China after a two-nation visit.