Coal Scam: Former PM Manmohan Singh, Kumar Mangalam Birla Summoned As Accused

The agency had informed the court that they are also filing statements of various persons recorded during the further investigation and requested the judge that the sealed cover be not opened until it complete the probe into the case.

The progress report was filed in pursuance to the court’s December 16, 2014 order in which it had directed the agency to examine former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and some other top PMO officials.

Manmohan Singh had told CBI that Hindalco was not favoured in any manner in the allocation of Talabira-II coal block and that it was done as per prescribed procedures.

He was believed to have made this point when CBI officials examined him 10 days ago in pursuance of the orders of a special court going into the case relating to the scam.

The statement of the former prime minister, who was holding the portfolio of Coal during the relevant time, was filed as part of the CBI’s progress report in the case before the special court today.

The sources said that during the examination of Singh, he was asked about the developments in the Prime Minister Office (PMO) and Ministry of Coal after industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla had written two letters dated May 7, 2005 and June 17, 2005 to him requesting for allocation of Talabira-II coal block to Hindalco.

With former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case, Congress today said that receiving court summons does not make one guilty.

“Sorry to puncture the brouhaha, but receiving a court summons does not make one guilty. That is elementary law. Right?”, party spokesman Sanjay Jha said in a series of tweets.

Jha insisted that it was former PM Singh who pushed for auctions in coal block allocations. “He sought transparency, resisted by BJP-ruled states”.

“The truth is coal block dubious allocations were all in non-Congress ruled states; MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, WB etc”, he said.

Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were today 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.

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