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Informist, Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Wednesday accepted the Central Bureau of Investigation's reports to close the coal block allocation case against former prime minister Manmohan Singh, who died in 2024. The bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant set aside the trial court's summons against Singh and said there was no compelling reason for the latter to reject the CBI's closure reports against Singh. 

 

"We have gone through both the closure reports filed by the CBI with the able assistance of learned senior counsel for the parties. Having regard to the parameters consistently laid down by this court in the matter of acceptance or rejection of an investigation report filed by an investigating agency, we are satisfied that there were no cogent reasons to set aside the closure reports filed by the CBI and take cognisance," said the apex court. The trial court had failed to apply settled principles governing acceptance of closure reports filed by investigating agencies, said the court.

 

The trial court had issued a summons to Singh in 2015 regarding the allocation of a coal mining licence to Hindalco Industries Ltd. in Odisha in 2005, at a time when he was prime minister and also held the coal ministry portfolio. Rejecting the CBI's closure report, the trial court had said, "This Court had to act with a heavy conscience and with full realization what the present order or the observations/conclusions being made here will have over the morale of the country as a whole," taking cognisance of several criminal offences under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act. 

 

The case has its genesis in the CBI filing a case against Hindalco Industries in 2013, linked to what is often termed the "coalgate" scandal, in which government auditors claimed lucrative coal mines had been handed out to industrial groups at prices well below market value. In its verdict, the top court had earlier cancelled the coal licences distributed during Singh's tenure as prime minister. Allocation of the mines to dozens of private sector businesses was "arbitrary and illegal", the court had said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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