Coal blocks case: Court rejects plea to summon Manmohan Singh

5 Dariya News

New Delhi 16-Oct-2015

A court here on Friday dismissed the plea of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda seeking summoning of former prime minister Manmohan Singh in a coal block allocation case allegedly involving firms owned by the Jindal group of industries.Special Judge Bharat Parashar rejected Koda's plea seeking summoning of Manmohan Singh and others in Jharkhand's Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block allocation case.The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also opposed the plea saying that there is no prima facie evidence against the former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the case.Koda had filed a plea seeking summoning of Manmohan Singh in the case but the CBI opposed it saying that the application was filed to delay the trial.In his plea, Koda said: "Materials placed by the CBI shows the said conspiracy, if any, cannot be complete without the involvement of the (then) coal minister (Manmohan Singh) who had the final say in the entire allotment."

He also sought summoning of the then energy secretary Anand Swaroop and the then mines secretary Jai Shankar Tiwari, saying they were part of the three-member sub-group formed by the Jharkhand government to evaluate the pleas of firms and suggest suitable application for recommendation by the state.The CBI told court that Swaroop and Tiwari has been named as prosecution witnesses in the case and the probe agency did not find any evidence against them too.Apart from Koda, Congress leader Naveen Jindal, former union minister of state for coal Dasari Narayan Rao, former coal secretary H.C. Gupta and others have been named as accused in the case.

They have been charge sheeted for criminal conspiracy and cheating as well as under the Prevention of Corruption Act.Rao, supporting Koda's application, has said that it was the prime minister's office which had examined and re-examined the issue of allocation of coal block and that the decision of the allocation of Jharkhand's Amarkonda Murgadangal to Jindal Steel and Gagan Sponge was taken on the behest of Manmohan Singh.However, Congress leader and industrialist Jindal had submitted that neither he is opposing nor supporting Koda's application. He added that any order passed by the court on Koda's application should not prejudice the rights of the accused to seek discharge from the case.