It looks like the ghost of the UPA Government's wrongdoings has come back to haunt Mr Manmohan Singh. It is sad that the former Prime Minister, who had always managed to keep his reputation for personal probity intact and away from that of the scandal-scarred regime he presided over, has now been summoned by a CBI court as an accused person in a coal block allocation case. Mr Singh now becomes only the second former Prime Minister, after PV Narasimha Rao, to be hauled up as an accused by a court.
With no quid pro quo or mala fide intent having been uncovered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against Mr Singh in the case, it is questionable whether a court should seek to prosecute executive decisions. The irony is that, as Prime Minister, Mr Singh had been accused by rivals of being indecisive. Now he is being tried for taking decisions which, according to him, were meant to promote industrial activity.