Coal scam: SC to hear plea of Manmohan, others on April 1

The Supreme Court will hear on April 1 a plea by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, challenging his summons as an accused along with others, by a special CBI court  in connection with the controversial allocation of Talabira II coal block in Odisha.

A bench of Justice V Gopala Gowda will on Wednesday take up for consideration separate special leave petitions filed by Singh, former Coal Secretary P C Parakh and industrialist Kumaramangalam Birla.

They have urged the apex court to quash the special CBI court's order passed on March 11.

In separate petitions, they contended that the order by the special judge was passed without proper application of mind.

The Special CBI court had rejected CBI's closure plea and issued summons to Singh, Parakh, Birla along with Hindalco, an Aditya Birla Group company, and its two top officials Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya, seeking their appearance before it as accused on April 8.

In his plea, Singh contended that there was no criminal intent on his part as layered administrative making mechanism was involved in the process.

The former prime minister had only taken a decision as a competent authority on allocation of Talabira II coal block to Hindalco on the representation of the Odisha government, the petition said.

According to the SC website, the apex court would also hear simultaneously on April 1 the petitions filed by Hindalco and Bhattacharya.

The naming of Singh came as the case, which was registered in September 2013, saw several twists and turns in the past 16 months with the CBI being nudged by the court to record Singh’s statement despite the agency seeking closure of the case as there was “no evidence” of any wrongdoing.

“Prima facie it is clear that the impugned criminal conspiracy which was initially conceived by Shubhendu Amitabh, D Bhattacharya, Kumaramangalam Birla and Hindalco was carried out further by roping in P C Parakh who was Secretary (Coal) and, thereafter, the then Minister of Coal Dr Manmohan Singh,” Special CBI judge Bharat Parashar had said in the order passed last month.