Coal allocation case: Congress drawing up best legal team to defend Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI: Congress is drawing up a team of best legal minds in the country to defend former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a coal allocation scam case.

The Congress leadership and the ranks are standing strongly behind Singh, who has been summoned as accused in the case. Yesterday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi led a solidarity march in which all top leaders of the party were present.

"The Congress is drawing up a team of best legal minds and are in the process of studying the order," former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar told PTI.

He said the party believes that Singh will be fully and undoubtedly exonerated by the superior courts on the first reading of the order.

"The order of the special court summoning Manmohan Singh in the face of CBI statement that there was no proven case is unusual. There are strong legal points which will be urged in the appeal in the higher court," he said.

Kumar said the party leadership and cadres stand behind Singh "like a rock" and will continue to stand by him.

"His credentials as a man of integrity and probity are unquestionable," he said.

Congress leaders have attacked the government accusing it of maintaining a "studied silence" after the CBI had told the court that there was no criminality involved in the allocation of Talabira coal blocks II to Hindalco company of Aditya Birla group in Odisha in 2005 when Singh also held the portfolio of coal.