3 min readNew DelhiJul 30, 2026 07:16 PM IST
First published on: Jul 29, 2026 at 08:32 PM IST
The Supreme Court Wednesday gave a posthumous clean chit to the late former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a case pertaining to the alleged coal block “scam” that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was probing.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana accepted the CBI’s decision to close the case against Singh, who passed away on December 26, 2024, and allowed his appeal challenging the summons issued to him by a trial court in 2015 regarding the case.
In August and October 2014, the CBI had filed closure reports before the trial court of then Special Judge Bharat Parashar, finding no case against Singh. The special court, however, rejected the reports, took cognisance of the case, and summoned Singh in March 2015. The Supreme Court had stayed the summons to Singh in April 2015.
“We are satisfied that there was no reason for the learned Judge to turn down the closure reports of the CBI and take cognizance,” the Supreme Court said Wednesday.
The case
The case pertains to alleged irregularities in the allocation of Odisha’s Talabira-2 coal block in 2005, when Manmohan Singh was PM and held the charge of the Coal Ministry portfolio.
The block was allocated to Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC) and Hindalco after the three entities formed a joint venture. The alleged irregularities pertained to the inclusion of Hindalco (an Aditya Birla Group flagship company) in the allotment of the block alongside the two public sector undertakings.
While the 25th Screening Committee had originally recommended allocating the block to NLC, the decision was revisited after Birla sent letters to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) requesting a coal allocation.
The special court had issued summons to Singh, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, former Coal Secretary P C Parakh, the company Hindalco and its executives B Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya.
The court observed that Singh made a “conscious effort” to “somehow accommodate” Hindalco in the process by approving Parakh’s proposal to accommodate the company in the block, while ignoring notes of caution from two PMO officials regarding relaxation of previously approved guidelines.
The judge noted that the allocation “nullified” the Screening Committee’s recommendations, and that it hurt the NLC and its efforts to establish a 2,000 megawatt power plant in Odisha.
What Singh’s lawyers said
Now, more than a decade after the special court’s summons, the top court was hearing a batch of petitions in connection with the coal block allotment cases when Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Singh, referred to the case against the late PM.
Sibal said that though the matter had become infructuous after Singh’s death, the special court’s remarks against him ought to be expunged. Senior Advocate A M Singhvi, also representing Singh, urged the Supreme Court to do away with the remarks.
Former PM Manmohan Singh in 2018. Photo: Prem Nath Pandey 
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