New Delhi: “Why wasn’t the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh questioned in the Hindalco coal block allocation case,†a Special court asked CBI on Tuesday.
“Shouldn’t the Prime Minister and coal minister have been questioned in the coal scam case involving Kumarmangalam Birla and others,” the court asked.
CBI, however, said after questioning the official from the Prime Minister’s Office, it didn’t think it was important for the coal minister to be interrogated.
The court has sought case diary of the matter along with other documents in the case. Abiding by the directive, CBI has said it will file the diary but in a sealed cover. The next hearing for the case has been fixed for November 27.
Manmohan Singh was the coal minister at the time when the coal blocks were allocated to Hindalco.
Before it was decimated in the national election in May, Singh’s coalition government was engulfed by the scandal that was quickly dubbed “Coal-Gate” – the national auditor said billions of dollars had been lost because coal fields had been distributed without a transparent auction.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court agreed and cancelled nearly 200 coal block allocations made since 1993 to cement, power and steel companies. The government will now auction those fields.
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