SC allows Manmohan appeal in Coal scam

Plea seeks deferring of hearing on September 21

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a plea by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to defer the September 21 hearing in connection with a case on the coal block allocation.

A bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra said the matter will now be listed only when it is mentioned by Singh’s counsel or the CBI lawyer, and ordered deletion of the case from its list of business of September 21.

The court’s order on Tuesday would result into an indefinite adjournment in the case relating to Singh.

In April, the court had stayed the order summoning Singh as an accused for allegedly facilitating illegal allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Orissa to Aditya Birla Group flagship Hindalco in 2005. It had also stayed the summons against Hindalco chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh and three others.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Monday mentioned the matter before the CJI, pointing out the case was neither ready for a hearing nor were the notices served, but the September 21-list showed the case listed for hearing. Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for the CBI said that the matter was perhaps listed along with the other cases in Coal scam, scheduled for a hearing before a special bench on September 21.

On Tuesday, Sibal contended that Singh’s was not a Coal scam case, as the same was heard by a bench dealing with the corruption cases. He also sought de-linking Singh’s appeal from the coal scam cases, being heard by the special bench.

The bench responded: “We have gone through the files, there is nothing in it. It is neither here nor there.” The court a decision would also have to be taken if Singh’s appeal should be heard along with Coal scam cases but for the moment, the matter will be deleted from the September 21 list.

On September 7, the order staying summons to Singh was mentioned repeatedly by senior advocate K K Venugopal, the counsel for former Minister of State for Coal, Santosh Bagrodia, who sought a similar relief from the special bench.