NEW DELHI, March 11 � The coal scam came back to haunt ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was today summoned as an accused in the case by a special CBI court which observed that he was �roped� into a criminal conspiracy to �accommodate� a major private company in coal block allocation, reports PTI.
An �upset� Singh, who became only the second former Prime Minister to be summoned as an accused in a criminal case after PV Narasimha Rao, reacted to the embarrassment by stating that he was open to legal scrutiny in the matter that pertains to 2005 when he also held the coal portfolio.
�I hope in a fair trial I will prove my innocence,� said the 83-year-old Singh whose government had been rocked by the coal scam highlighted by the CAG report in 2012 which projected a loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer.
Also summoned as accused in the case were industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, whose HINDALCO company was controversially allocated Talabira-II in Odisha in 2005, the company itself and two of its officials Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya, besides former Coal Secretary PC Parakh.
Special CBI judge Bharat Parashar has asked Singh and the other five accused to appear before him on April 8.
Narasimha Rao had been made an accused and chargesheeted in three different cases including the JMM MPs bribery case in 1996, but was subsequently acquitted.
The CBI had sought closure of the case against Birla and the others, but the court had rejected the closure report and directed examination of Singh by the investigators.
