Coal scam: Court dismisses Koda's plea to summon Manmohan Singh

The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block to Jindal group firms

A court on Friday dismissed the plea of ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda seeking to summon former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an additional accused in a coal scam case.

Judge Bharat Parashar had on September 28 reserved the order on Koda’s plea after the agency had opposed it, saying there was no evidence that Singh was part of any conspiracy in allocation of a coal block to Naveen Jindal group firms.

Koda had alleged the CBI was trying to show there was no involvement of the then PM in the process.

The case pertains to alleged irregularities in allocation of the Amarkonda Murgadangal  block to Jindal Steel and Power and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt.

Beside Singh, Koda had sought summoning of Anand Swaroop, then secretary (energy) and Jai Shankar Tiwari, then secretary (mines and geology) in the state governments as additional accused in the case.

Regarding Swaroop and Tiwari, CBI had told the court  they were important prosecution witnesses in the case and “rather it was Koda who had tinkered with recommendations”.

Beside Koda and Rao, CBI had chargesheeted industrialist Naveen Jindal, former Union coal secretary H C Gupta and 11 others in the case.

The court had summoned these 15 as accused, saying prima facie offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating) of the penal code read with sections 13(1)(c) and 13(1)(d) (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act were made out against them.