Yesterday, a Special Court summoned Manmohan Singh on accusations of corruption and criminal conspiracy with regard to the allotment of a coal mine in Odisha to Hindalco Industries Ltd. This morning the Indian Express reported that the court found that Singh, when holding the Ministry of Coal portfolio in 2005 to 2009, gave his approval to Hindalco "in violation of established procedure." This is the latest setback for the former prime minister, who has also been accused of impropriety in the 2G case by Vinod Rai, former Comptroller and Auditor General, and others and was examined by the CBI in January this year with regard to the same coal block allocations for which he now faces the court summons.
In our October 2011 issue, Vinod Jose profiled Singh in "Falling Man.” In this excerpt from that story, Singh is called on by then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao to take the reins of the finance ministry, marking the beginning of his steep rise in politics.
Facing an economic catastrophe, PV Narasimha Rao knew he needed to reach beyond the ranks of khadi-clad senior Congress leaders to select a finance minister, for three separate reasons: first, he would need a skilled economist to conduct negotiations with the international financial institutions; second, in the event of a backlash against the radical policy changes, an ‘outsider’ would be easier to dismiss from the cabinet; and third, if the new finance minister was successful, he still wouldn’t pose any threat to Rao’s own position in the party. To some extent, the blueprint for liberalisation had already taken shape, given India’s desperate need for huge loans; what remained to be determined were the details of its execution.
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