The Supreme Court stayed court proceedings and a summons issued by a special CBI court against former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and five others in the case of allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 to Aditya Birla group company Hindalco. The stay, which also applied to Hindalco Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, former Coal Secretary PC Parakh and three others, came after senior counsel Kapil Sibal questioned the legality of the summons to the former Prime Minister citing lack of sanction as required under the CrPC and contended that allocation of a coal block was an administrative act without any criminal intent.