Court summons does not make one guilty: Cong on coal scam

With former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case, Congress today said that receiving court summons does not make one guilty.

"Sorry to puncture the brouhaha, but receiving a court summons does not make one guilty. That is elementary law. Right?", party spokesman Sanjay Jha said in a series of tweets.
Jha insisted that it was former PM Singh who pushed for auctions in coal block allocations. "He sought transparency, resisted by BJP-ruled states".

"The truth is coal block dubious allocations were all in non-Congress ruled states; MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, WB etc", he said.

Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were today summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case pertaining to allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 and asked to appear before it on April 8.