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Roundup: Indian court summons former PM Manmohan Singh in coal scam

Xinhua, March 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

A special Indian court Wednesday made the country's former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh an accused in the multi-billion dollar coal scam and summoned him three years after the scandal rocked then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

The special court of India's premier probe agency asked Singh and five others, including a top industrialist, to appear before it on April 8 in the coal scam, dubbed as coalgate, which involved misselling of coal fields to private companies, thus causing a huge loss to the state exchequer.

In fact, this particular case, one of several cases in the coal scam, involved allocation of a coal field in 2005 by then Indian government to Hindalco allegedly at a price much below the market rate without any auction. Singh had held the additional charge of the Coal Ministry during the time.

The special court has charged the former prime minister with criminal conspiracy, corruption and breach of trust, along with five others, including Hindalco's Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, brushing aside the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)'s claims of "no prosecutable evidence" against him.

All the charges carry punishment of up to 10 years in jail.

Singh, who was India's prime minister for a decade till 2014, and is said to have a clean image, said he was upset with the court's decision, but claimed he was innocent. "I am sure that the truth will prevail. I will be able to establish my total innocence, " Singh told the media in the national capital.

In a statement, Hindalco, a part of the 40-billion-U.S. dollar Aditya Birla Group, said: "Hindalco reiterates that none of its officials, including its Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, have pursued any unlawful or inappropriate means for securing the allocation."

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has slammed the Congress party for putting Singh in a spot over its sins. "An economist Prime Minister has been summoned by court only because of Congress scams," said senior party leader Prakash Javadekar.

However, the Congress defended Singh. "Don't think anyone in India believes that Manmohan Singh can do anything wrong. We shall defend him with all our might," senior leader Kapil Sibal said.

The coalgate was unearthed by the government auditor in 2012. The Supreme Court had last year cancelled the allocation of nearly 214 coal blocks by successive governments over the last 20 years and the Indian government is now re-auctioning the fields. Endi