New Delhi: Giving huge relief to former Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh, who had also briefly held the coal portfolio, the Supreme Court on Wednesday stay-ed the summons by a special court for his appearance in a coal block allocation case as an accused.
A bench of Justices V. Gopala Gowda and C. Nagappan also stayed the summons order of top industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, his firm Hindalco, former coal secretary P.C. Parakh and others over the 2005 allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Orissa. The bench admitted six special leave petitions challenging the summons, issued notice to the CBI and stayed all further proceedings in the trial court. The bench heard senior counsel Kapil Sibal for Dr Singh and senior counsel Harish Salve for Mr Birla and said important questions of law had been raised in these petitions.
The bench also issued notice to the Centre on Hindalco’s petition challenging the constitutional validity of a clause in the Prevention of Corruption Act, that was invoked by the trial court in issuing summons.
