Supreme Court refuses to bring ex-coal ministers, Manmohan Singh under scanner

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to bring former coal ministers including ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had held the portfolio during the previous UPA government, under scrutiny for criminal liabilities in the coal blocks allocation scam.

"We decline to entertain the plea," a bench comprising justices M B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A K Sikri said while rejecting the plea of advocate M L Sharma, one of the PIL petitioners, on whose petition the apex court had delivered the landmark verdict holding as illegal the coal blocks allocation since 1993 to 2010 and quashing 214 out of 218 of them.

Besides Singh, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Sibu Soren and Sri Prakash Jaiswal were also coal ministers and the advocate wanted a direction to impose criminal liabilities on them.

The plea also sought action against other political leaders who were allegedly involved in allocation of coal blocks.

The advocate had also raised the issue of recovering market price of the coal mined by the companies under the garb of the illegal allotment.

Further, he raised the issue of black-listing all the companies/individuals and their sister concerns, subsidiaries or firms belonging to them directly or indirectly and prohibiting them from participating in future allocation process.