Coal Scam – Kapil Sibal, Harish Salve get stay on summons to Manmohan Singh, ex-Coal Secretary Parakh, and KM Birla

The Supreme Court today stayed the summons issued to the former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla. The court was hearing an appeal filed against the order of the Special Judge trying the coal scam cases..A Division Bench comprising Justice Gopala Gowda and Justice C Nagappan, which heard the case in a jam-packed Court room 9, issued notice to the CBI and the central government..Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for Manmohan Singh while Senior Advocate Harish Salve represented Birla. Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari accepted notice on behalf of CBI..Kapil Sibal argued that there was nothing illegal in the actions of the former PM while allotting coal blocks to Hindalco against the recommendation of the Screening Committee..“It is a purely administrative decision. What is illegal in it? It is not illegal to allot a mine, it is not illegal to allot it to a private party. There is no statutory prohibition in doing so. He allotted coal blocks to a private party against the screening committee decision. There is nothing illegal in it.”.Sibal also said that the Special judge is not empowered to sit in judgment over what is public good. He also pointed out that the special court had issued summons to Singh despite two closure reports filed by the CBI in the case..Salve went one step further and argued that if the relevant provision of the statute is interpreted in the manner in which the special judge has done, then the provision will be unconstitutional..“In a Westminster form of democracy where a PM has plenary powers, if a judge decides what is “public intetest”, then Section 13(1)(d) (3) will fall foul of the Constitution.”.The Court issued notice to CBI and Centre and proceeded to stay the summons order issued by Special judge Bharat Parashar..Dutt Menon Dunmorrsett Partner Anuradha Dutt, lawyer for Manmohan Singh commented,.“It was a bad summoning order. The judge seemed to be too enthusiastic and it was a predetermined order. It was absolutely contrary to all known principleas of criminal law.”.Below is the table of lawyers who appeared for the parties:.[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”25277″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”style”:”width: 623px; height: 207px; margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 50px;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]].Read the order of the Court below.