NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the trial court’s decision to summon former PM Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary PC Parakh and three others.
A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan also asked the CBI and Union government to file reply in four weeks to all six appeals.
Singh’s daughter was present in court and expressed faith in judiciary after the apex court stayed the order summoning her father and five others as accused in the allocation of Talbira-II coal block to a joint venture of Hindalco.
Appearing for Singh, senior advocate Kapil Sibal made belligerent legal arguments terming the trial court decision to summon the former PM a grave mistake both in law and understanding of evidence.
Sibal said that the ex-PM according to the trial judge violated the screening committee guidelines.
He said but the Supreme Court had cancelled all coal block allocations saying the committee followed no procedure.
Sibal said if this is the case, then Singh did the right thing in not agreeing with the screening committee recommendations.
Moreover, keeping the federal structure of governance then PM had honoured the request made by the Odisha chief minister for allocation of coal block to joint venture between private and public enterprises.
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Manmohan Singh summoned as accused in coal scam case
What compelled trial court judge to summon Manmohan Singh
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had moved the SC as the apex court, which monitored the CBI probe into the coal scam, had restrained the high courts from entertaining any petition against the orders of the special CBI court.
The trial court had on March 11 issued summons to them asking them to appear before it as accused and face trial for charges under Prevention of Corruption Act and Indian Penal Code.
The summons were based on the allegation that allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha was changed from Neyveli Lignite Corporation to a joint venture of Mahanadi coal fields, NLC and Birla’s Hindalco causing loss to the exchequer. Singh held the coal ministry portfolio at that time. The trial judge had summoned the six, terming the decision to change allocation from NLC to a JV of Hindalco against public interest.
In his petition, Singh has termed as “ridiculous” the logic behind the issuance of summons. It said an administrative decision could be “good or bad” but it was unheard of to introduce criminality into the decision by terming it post-facto as against public interest.
“There is not even a whisper of allegation in the order summoning Singh as an accused that he had any criminal intent in the coal block allocation,” the special leave petition said and stressed on the “strict liability classification” adopted in criminal law for making a person accused in a case.
TOI | Apr 1, 2015
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