A special court here on Friday dismissed an application by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda seeking summoning of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an accused in a coal block allocation scam case.
Though there are 10 accused persons in the case, including Mr. Koda and former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao, only Mr. Rao supported the plea of Mr. Koda to summon Dr. Singh.
Special Judge Bharat Parashar said: “In the facts and circumstances of the present case, this court does not find any prima facie case to summon Dr. Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister, as an accused. Accordingly, the present application being devoid of any merits is hereby dismissed.’’
Mr. Koda’s plea to summon two former officers was also dismissed.
The case relates to the allocation of the Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand to Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. (JSPL) and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt. Ltd. (GSIPL) in an illegal manner. The CBI has charge-sheeted the accused persons for criminal conspiracy, cheating and misusing their official position to allot the block to two companies, and the court has taken cognisance of it.
Counsel for Mr. Koda argued that if as per the charge-sheet all the accused persons hatched a conspiracy to secure the allocation of the coal block to the two companies, then the final objective of it could not have been achieved without the active connivance of Dr. Singh.
The Special Public Prosecutor opposed the application, submitting that if Dr. Singh wanted to favour any company specifically then he would not have referred the matter for reconsideration to the Ministry of Coal.
The same Judge had in March this year summoned Dr. Singh as an accused in the coal block case related to the allocation of coal blocks to Hindalco, owned by the Aditya Birla Group, in an illegal manner.
The CBI had sought closure of this case against Dr. Singh but Mr. Parashar had rejected it and summoned Dr. Singh, besides former Coal Secretary P.C. Parakh, industrialist Kumarmangalam Birla and others as accused.
At present, there is a stay on their summoning by the Supreme Court.
