Coalgate: Ex-PM Manmohan Singh, Kumar Mangalam Birla approach apex court; Kapil Sibal, Harish Salve likely to appear

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and the Hindalco Group have all moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the summons issued by the special CBI Judge hearing the cases pertaining to Coalgate..According to highly placed sources, Senior Advocate and former Union Minister, Kapil Sibal will appear for Manmohan Singh while Senior Advocate Harish Salve will represent Kumar Mangalam Birla. Hindalco will be represented by Senior Advocate and former spokesperson of Congress party Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The matter is likely to be mentioned before the Supreme Court on Friday this week..The petitioners have challeged the orders passed by the Special Judge Bharat Parashar on December 16, 2014 and March 11, 2015 taking cognizance and issuing summons to the petitioners. They have also sought for an ex-parte stay of the said orders and a stay on the proceedings before the Special judge in the case against Manmohan Singh and Kumar Mangalam Birla..The petitioners have assailed the orders of the Special judge on various grounds. They have submitted that in the absence of any material evidence, the Special judge is not empowered to take cognizance and issue summons entirely upon what it perceived to be doing in “public interest”. They have contended that it is not the function of the criminal court to sit in judgment over the merits of the action of the Prime Minister in acceding to the request of the Chief Minister of Odisha with regard to the allotment of coal block. The petitioners have also submitted that it is not the Special judge’s function to assess the merits of whether the State shall support a private sector project or a public sector project. The petitioners have claimed that if a decision was taken to support the private sector project, it does not necessarily amount to corruption under the Prevention of Corrupt Act..They petitioners have also contended that the language of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 does not render a decision of the government opposed to public interest and an offence cannot be made out without there being mens rea and dishonest intent in the making of such a decision. Such an interpretation of the statute, the petitioners have claimed, will amount to conferring the Criminal court with powers far wider than those enjoyed by Constitutional courts..They have also submitted that in an institutional decision making process (such as coal block allotment), different functionaries may express different points of view. The petitioners have assailed the authority of the criminal court to compare such different views and conclude as to which of those views was in ‘public interest’. Based on the above, they have claimed that a criminal court is not authorised to substitute its opinion on the issue of public interest in place of the opinion of the decision maker..Singh along with Birla and three others have been summoned by Special Judge Bharat Parashar for criminal conspiracy and breach of trust and for offences under Prevention of Corruption Act in the case relating to allotment of coal blocks to Hindalco. They have been asked to appear before the Court on April 8. The Court has summoned them despite the CBI earlier filing a closure report in the case pertaining to Hindalco..Image Courtesy:.Manmohan Singh.Kapil Sibal.Harish Salve