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Manmohan Singh ‘cleanest man in Indian politics’: Tharoor on posthumous clean chit by Supreme Court in coal block case
SC has formally exonerated the late ex-PM and quashed the 2015 trial order filed against him; Tharoor called him “cleanest man in Indian politics”
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor praised the late former PM Manmohan Singh as the “cleanest man in Indian politics” after the Supreme Court closed the coal block case against the former prime minister.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday formally exonerated the ex-PM and quashed the 2015 trial order filed against him. The order was passed by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, bringing a posthumous legal vindication to Singh, who died in December 2024.
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Taking to X, Tharoor stated that Manmohan Singh did not need a “certificate of integrity” from the top court, adding that those who sought to implicate the former PM should be ashamed of themselves.
“Irony just died again. The cleanest man in Indian politics did not need an SC certificate of his integrity. Instead, it is those who sought to implicate him in these charges who ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves,” Tharoor wrote on X.
SC quashes 2015 summons order
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court quashed the 2015 summons order against Manmohan Singh and five others in the coal block allocation.
“Due to the unfortunate demise of the appellant, this appeal could be disposed of as infructuous. But with a view to consider the aspect of the learned special judge taking cognizance and summoning the appellant, we have gone through both closure reports filed by the CBI,” stated the order, HT reported earlier.
The CBI reports also stated that there was no material against the ex-PM.
The coal block allocation case was one of the most politically significant criminal cases during the UPA era.
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The controversy stemmed from the allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Odisha to Hindalco Industries in 2005, when Singh also held the coal portfolio.
Despite two CBI closure reports, in March 2015, special judge Bharat Parashar rejected the reports and summoned Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh, Hindalco Industries, and company officials Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya.
Singh challenged these summons in the Supreme Court and argued that there was an error, despite the CBI stating that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
