March 12, 2015
Updated: March 12, 2015 02:38 IST
Political price or personal liability?
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.
