Coal Scam Case: The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a clean chit to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation scam case. A special judge quashed the summons order and accepted the closure report filed by the CBI.

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 PM 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.

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What Was The Case?

The case relates to the alleged irregular allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Odisha to Hindalco Industries during the UPA government's tenure. At that time, the then Prime Minister Singh held the charge of the Coal Ministry. CBI, in its FIR, had named Parakh, Birla, M/s Hindalco Industries Ltd and other unknown persons for alleged offences under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under provisions of the PCA.

Clean Chit from the Supreme Court

A trial court in Delhi had summoned Manmohan Singh as an accused in 2015 despite the CBI's closure report. The court believed there was sufficient evidence to proceed against Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former Coal Secretary PC Parakh, and others.

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Singh challenged the summons in the Supreme Court at the time, arguing that the trial court erred in taking cognisance of the case despite the investigating agency finding no case worthy of prosecution. The Top Court stayed the trial court's summons in this case in April 2015, preventing Singh from facing trial.

The appeal remained pending in court for over a decade, and following Singh's death in December 2024, the Supreme Court has now dismissed the case as infructuous, ending the proceedings against the former Prime Minister. Singh passed away on December 26, 2024, at the age of 92, and was cremated with full state honours in New Delhi.

Singh, an eminent Indian economist, served as the 14th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014 during the Congress-led UPA government.