New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been made an accused and summoned by a court in a case linked to Coal-Gate, the alleged scam that saw mining rights being assigned without any transparency to private firms.

The charges against Dr Singh include criminal conspiracy, corruption and breach of trust by a public servant.

A court has also named Hindalco, its chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, and former coal secretary PC Parakh among six accused.

They have all been asked to appear in court on April 8.

Dr Singh was reportedly questioned by the CBI in January and asked him about a coal field in Talabira block that was allotted in 2005 to Hindalco, whose billionaire chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla, is one of the country’s most respected industrialists.  At the time, Dr Singh held direct charge of the Coal Ministry.

The court had in December asked for Dr Singh to be examined.

Before the court’s order, the CBI had suggested it would like to drop the case against Hindalco, which makes aluminum.

Hindalco, which is part of the $40 billion Aditya Birla Group, had first been refused the coal field it sought, but the decision was later reversed.  The company has denied any wrongdoing and the PM had in a statement in 2013 defended the action.

The scam dubbed “Coal-Gate” surfaced after the national auditor’s report in 2012 questioned the government’s practice of awarding coal mining concessions to companies without competitive bidding.

The Supreme Court last year scrapped nearly 214 coal blocks allocated by successive governments over the past two decades.

(Inputs: NDTV)