Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and business magnet Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court challenging the summons issued by a trial court for personal appearance as accused in the coal block allocation scam.
The separate petitions filed by Singh, Birla, former Coal Secretary PC Parakh, Hindalco and its two officials are likely to be mentioned on Friday for urgent hearing. The special court dealing with the coal scam has set April 8 for the appearance of all the accused.
Singh — who was the Coal Minister when the Talabira II coal block was allotted to a joint venture of Hindalco and a public sector undertaking of Odisha — will be represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal. In his petition challenging the summons order of March 11, 2015, Singh argued that it was served on him without providing any special reasons or material pointing out to his involvement.
He further submitted that any action by the Prime Minister done in “public interest” could at best be seen as a bad administrative decision but to attribute criminality to his decision not only sets a bad precedent but hampers the administrative decision-making process.
Pointing flaws in the orders passed by Special Judge Bharat Parashar to summon the accused, first by an order dated December 16, 2014 and later on March 11, the other accused argued that an attempt was being made by the court in question to determine “public interest” which is not the role of a criminal court.
Moreover, it alleged that the Special Judge proceeded to issue summonses holding a prima facie charge under Prevention of Corruption Act Section 13(d) without disclosing how the lawful decision-making process to allot Talabira II coal blocks to Hindalco showed an intent to dishonestly favour any person or cause any loss to the exchequer. The said allocation was made at the request by the Odisha Government.
The Special Court on March 11 said, “I am taking cognizance of offences under Sections 120B (conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC and under Sections 13(1)(c) and 13(1)(d)(iii) of PC Act against M/s Hindalco, Shubhendu Amitabh, D Bhattacharya, Kumar Mangalam Birla, PC Parakh and Manmohan Singh.”