NEW DELHI: More than 11 years after a Delhi court sensationally summoned former PM Manmohan Singh as an accused in a coal block allotment scam case, the Supreme Court Wednesday gave him a clean chit, closing the case nearly two years after his demise.Special judge Bharat Parashar, presiding over trials in coal block allotment scam cases which were investigated by the CBI under the SC’s monitoring, had on March 11, 2015, issued summons to Singh in the case relating to irregular allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha to Kumar Mangalam Birla-owned Hindalco. Singh held the charge of coal ministry at the time of the allocation in question.Parashar, now the secretary general of SC, had declined to close the cases despite the CBI filing two successive reports — on Aug 27, 2014, and Oct 21, 2014 — recommending the same.Since the Supreme Court had barred Delhi HC from entertaining appeals against interim orders of the special judge, Singh moved SC challenging trial court’s order.A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan had on April 1, 2015, stayed the summoning order, saving the ex-PM the embarrassment of appearing as an accused in the Patiala House Court complex.
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On Wednesday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who had earlier successfully argued in SC for staying the proceedings against Singh, told a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalaya Bagchi and V Mohana that though the proceedings would abate due to Singh’s demise in Nov 2024, the court should remove the trial court’s observations against the ex-PM in the summoning order.Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi joined Sibal to reiterate the request.Both the special public prosecutor and senior advocate R S Cheema and additional solicitor general S V Raju had recused themselves, leaving the court with the task of perusing the CBI closure reports on its own before passing the order.The CJI-led bench said the demise of an accused would ordinarily result in the abatement of case against him. After perusing the closure reports, it allowed Singh’s appeal and quashed the trial court’s order taking cognisance of the crime and issuing summons to Singh.
