Agencies/New Delhi

The Supreme Court yesterday suspended a summons requiring former prime minister Manmohan Singh to appear as one of the accused in a corruption trial involving coal mining licences.
Singh, who was prime minister from 2004 until last year, was the highest-profile figure to be implicated in the case involving the government licence allocations, long dogged by suspicions of corruption.
He faces allegations of corruption-related offences, breach of trust and criminal conspiracy, which carries a possible life sentence.
Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to consider challenges by Singh and five other accused, including former coal secretary P C Parakh and prominent industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla.
It stayed the summons issued by the trial court.
Singh’s lawyer Kapil Sibal, describing the March 11 order summoning the former premier as “completely perverse” - asked where was the act of illegality.
Singh’s two daughters, Upinder Singh and Daman Singh, were present in the visitors’ gallery of court No9 where the hearing was taking place.
The court also issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a batch of petitions challenging the March 11 order.
The provision which has been challenged says “while holding office as a public servant, obtains for any person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage without any public interest....”
Sibal urged the court to consider whether the principle of strict liability could be invoked when interpreting the section.
Sibal, said: “Is it illegal to allocate mines? Is it illegal to choose private parties to allocate the mines? Is it illegal if I (the then prime minister) don’t agree with the screening committee - which has been held non-existent by the apex court by its August 25, 2014 judgment?”
He asked: “Where is the illegality and where is the quid pro quo?”
Telling the court that the guidelines for the allocation of coal blocks were “not law” and they have no “statutory inscriptions,” Sibal said the prime minister can any time take decisions which may not be conforming to the guidelines to balance the “competing public interests.”
Sibal wondered how the prime minister reviewing the decision of the 25th meeting of the screening committee was illegal. “Every day, we review our decisions. Does it mean that I should go to Tihar jail?”
Even if a decision has been taken but not communicated, it was always open to review, he said.
He said even Mahatma Gandhi had said, “I change my opinion every few years.”
The 82-year-old Singh enjoyed a reputation for probity during his decade as head of the Congress-led government ousted in last year’s general election. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Another lawyer Ashwini Kumar said the court had decided to examine the case “since important and substantial questions of law and processes of criminal trial were to be decided.”
Birla’s lawyer Harish Salve said in the Westminster form of government, the prime minister has plenary powers and can call for review of any decision.
Sibal asked whether the “allocation of a part of natural resource to a private party and not entirely to a public sector undertaking be an act of corruption.”
“Is it that in this country no natural resource is to be given to private party,” Sibal asked, pointing out that everyone knows coal was in shortage and was needed for power, steel and cement.