India
pti-PTI
With the Supreme Court giving a clean chit to former prime minister Manmohan Singh in a coal block allocation case, the Congress on Wednesday hit out at the BJP, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi owes the nation an apology.
The Supreme Court acquitted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Talabira-II coal block allocation case, accepting the CBI’s closure report and setting aside the trial court’s previous order.
The Supreme Court closed the criminal case against Singh by setting aside a summoning order passed against him. The veteran Congress leader, who passed away on December 27, 2024, now stands formally acquitted in the high-profile criminal case.
Reacting to the development, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “The PM owes an apology to the nation.”
The BJP had repeatedly targeted Singh over the coal block allocation controversy, often referred to as the Coalgate scam, ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which the saffron party won. Modi and senior BJP leaders had then accused Singh of moral, political, and direct responsibility for massive losses to the exchequer and frequently invoked the alleged scam during election campaigns and parliamentary debates.
Congress’ media and publicity department head Pawan Khera slammed the India Against Corruption movement led by activist Anna Hazare in 2011, which is believed to have severely damaged the UPA government’s public image.
“As is now abundantly clear, ‘India Against Corruption’ was, in fact, ‘Corruption Against India’,” he said on X.
Independent Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said, “A moment of great satisfaction for Dr Singh’s family, well-wishers and for me personally.”
“The cognisance taken by the special court was set aside today by the Supreme Court. This is a vindication of his righteousness,” said Sibal, who was a minister in the Manmohan government.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana accepted the CBI’s closure report giving a clean chit to the former prime minister and others.
The top court said there was no reason for the trial court judge to turn down the CBI’s closure report and take cognisance.
“Due to the unfortunate demise of the appellant, this appeal could be disposed of as infructuous. But with a view to consider the aspect of ld. spl. judge taking cognisance and summoning the appellant, we have gone through both closure reports filed by CBI,” the bench said.
“Having regard to the relevant parameters consistently laid down by this court on acceptance of reports of investigating agency, we are satisfied that there was no reason for ld. judge to turn down closure reports of CBI and take cognisance. We allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment. As a result, we accept the closure reports of CBI and close the matter,” it said.
Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were summoned as accused by a special court in an alleged coal scam case about the allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005.
The Supreme Court, however, intervened and stayed the directive.
Singh had questioned the absence of the mandated sanction for prosecuting public officials like him, and denied any criminality in his decision concerning the coal block allocation.
