Supreme Court clears former PM Manmohan Singh in coal case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, formally closed a criminal case against the late former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, setting aside a 2015 trial court order that had summoned him as an accused in the Talabira-II coal block allocation case. The court accepted closure reports filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, effectively ending the long-running legal proceedings.

A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, ruled that the special CBI court had no valid reason to reject the investigating agency's reports and take cognizance of the alleged offences. The court quashed the March 11, 2015, summoning order and closed the proceedings on their merits. The bench noted that while Singh's death in December 2024 would ordinarily have rendered the appeal infructuous, it chose to examine the case because the lower court's order contained adverse findings against him.

The case pertained to the allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 to the company Hindalco Industries Ltd. At the time, Singh was also holding the coal portfolio. The CBI, after an investigation, had filed two closure...