SC closes criminal case against former PM Manmohan Singh in coal block allocation case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday closed criminal case against former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in coal block allocation case, accepting CBI's closure report giving clean chit to the politician and others involved in the case.

A SC bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana accepted the CBI report, saying there was no reason for the trial court judge to turn down closure reports of CBI and take cognisance.

"Due to unfortunate demise of the appellant, this appeal could be disposed of as infructuous. But with a view to consider the aspect of ld. spl. judge taking cognisance and summoning the appellant, we have gone through both closure reports filed by CBI," the bench said, as quoted by PTI.


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"Having regard to the relevant parameters consistently laid down by this court on acceptance of reports of investigating agency, we are satisfied that there was no reason for ld. judge to turn down closure reports of CBI and take cognisance. We allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment. As a result, we accept the closure reports of CBI and close the matter," the bench added.

Alongside Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were also summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case pertaining to allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005.

The Supreme Court intervened and stayed the court directive.

The former PM had questioned the absence of the mandated sanction for prosecuting public officials like him, and denied any criminality in his decision concerning the coal block allocation.

Besides these three, the court had also summoned M/s Hindalco, its officials Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya as accused in the coal case.

The case pertains to the allocation of Talabira II coal block in Odisha to M/s Hindalco in 2005, when the then PM Singh was holding the coal portfolio.

CBI, in its FIR, had named Parakh, Birla, M/s Hindalco Industries Ltd and other unknown persons for alleged offences under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under provisions of the PCA. However, the investigative agency had later on filed a closure report in the court, which had refused to accept it.

The court had directed CBI to examine Singh and some top officials of the then Prime Minister's Office (PMO), including Singh's then Principal Secretary T K A Nair and then private secretary B V R Subramanyam.

(With inputs from PTI)