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The order brings a posthumous legal vindication to Singh, who died in December 2024 while his appeal against the summoning order remained pending before the apex court for more than a decade
Coal blocks allocated to SAIL and NTPC and two Ultra Mega Power Projects have been exempted.
Supreme Court closes coal block allocation case against ex-PM Manmohan Singh
There was no fair and transparent procedure, says Bench
In a closure report, the CBI had said that nothing substantial emerged to establish cheating and criminal conspiracy among Coal Ministry officials and JLD Yavatmal Energy
Earlier, on October 21, CBI had filed a "detailed and comprehensive" report before the court in the case.
In 2005, Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary PC Parakh and three others were summoned as accused by the Special Court in corruption allegations pertaining to allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha
The case remained pending before the Supreme Court for several years. Manmohan Singh died in 2024.
The Supreme Court has cleared former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a coal block scam case. This decision comes more than eleven years after a Delhi court summoned him as an accused. The court closed the case nearly two years after his demise in November 2024. The apex court quashed the trial court's order taking cognisance of the crime.
History was kinder: The verdict Manmohan Singh never lived to see
“The prosecutorial process was itself a punishment, the stark cruelty of which is now apparent after his [Manmohan Singh’s] exoneration by the Supreme Court,” says former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar