NEW DELHI: Former PM Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday that he was upset over a Delhi court’s decision to issue him summons to appear as an accused in a coal scam case.
“I am upset, but this is a part of life,” Manmohan Singh told reporters on Wednesday.
“I am sure that the truth will prevail and I will get a chance to put forward my case with facts,” the former PM added.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were on Wednesday summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case pertaining to allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 and asked to appear before it on April 8.
Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar summoned the six accused on April 8 for the alleged offences punishable under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) of the IPC and under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).
Besides these three, the court also summoned M/s Hindalco, its officials Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya as accused in the case.
If convicted, the accused are liable to be sentenced for a maximum of life imprisonment.
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“Congress has faced these challenges in the past, we will be vindicated in the final analysis,” Manish Tewari told Times Now on the court’s decision to issue summons to former PM Manmohan Singh in the Hindalco case.
The court had in December asked for Manmohan Singh to be examined. Before the court’s order, the CBI had suggested it would like to drop the case against Hindalco and others saying it could not find evidence against them.
Hindalco, which is part of the $40 billion Aditya Birla Group, had first been refused the coal field it sought, but the decision was later reversed. The company has denied any wrongdoing and the PM had in a statement in 2013 defended the action.
The scam dubbed “coalgate” surfaced after the CAG report in 2012 questioned the government’s practice of awarding coal mining concessions to companies without competitive bidding.
The Supreme Court last year scrapped nearly 214 coal blocks allocated by successive governments over the past two decades.
(With inputs from agencies)
TOI | Mar 11, 2015
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