The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime suffered immensely from the perception that it was ‘scam-tainted’. However, the cost of such a tag until now was limited to a massive electoral defeat for the Congress and the prosecution of a few who served in it as Ministers. Even then, its detractors often took care to exempt its Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, from personal criminal liability while blaming him for failing to stop his colleagues’ misdemeanours or silently acquiescing in them. It is therefore baffling that >Dr. Singh is being summoned to face criminal prosecution, based solely on material evaluated by a judge, without an investigating agency recording an adverse finding against him. Brushing aside the CBI’s initial attempt to close the case, Special Judge Bharat Parashar has proceeded to take cognisance of criminal charges against Dr. Singh, in his capacity as Minister of Coal in the first UPA regime, the then Coal Secretary P.C. Parakh, and well-known industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, and three others, in connection with the manner in which Hindalco, an Aditya Birla group company, was accommodated in the Talabira coal block in Odisha, originally meant for Neyveli Lignite Corporation in 2005. Dr. Singh appears to be paying a price for heading a regime that was seen as associated with much wrongdoing. Both he and Mr. Parakh have in the past denied wrongdoing in the Hindalco allocation.

Judge Parashar is forthright in his prima facie conclusion that between the then Secretary, Coal (P.C. Parakh) and Minister of Coal (Dr. Singh), “there was a concerted effort to somehow accommodate M/s Hindalco in Talabira-II coal block” and that it was “the central common objective” of a criminal conspiracy. Held against Dr. Singh is the fact that he allowed the allocation matter to be reopened after he himself had approved the minutes of a screening committee meeting at which it was decided that NLC would get the block. Also, repeated reminders and phone calls had gone from the PMO to the Coal Ministry to expedite the matter. The Supreme Court verdict invalidating all coal block allocations made during the UPA regime highlighted the administrative malaise that gripped its rule. Given the tenor of such verdicts, it was only to be expected that one day Dr. Singh, as its Prime Minister, would be called upon to explain some transaction or defend a criminal charge arising out of it. The summons and impending prosecution show that political accountability is not the only consequence of inaction or the failure to do the right thing when in power. The onus is now on the court to prove that in its summons to the former Prime Minister, it holds Dr. Singh not just politically accountable but personally liable.