Manohar Lal Sharma v. Prime Minister & Others (Coal Allocation Case)

In 2025, the Supreme Court of India addressed the enduring legal fallout of the infamous coal block allocation scandal through the public interest litigation Manohar Lal Sharma v. Prime Minister & Others. The original plea challenged the government's discretionary allotment of 218 coal blocks between 1993 and 2010 without competitive bidding, alleging favoritism and massive loss to the public exchequer. While the blocks were declared illegal and canceled in a historic 2014 verdict, the 2025 proceedings focused on the fate of criminal trials and the review petitions filed by convicted industrialists and former public servants. The court reaffirmed that natural resources must be allocated through transparent auctions and refused to dilute the accountability of beneficiaries, directing the special CBI court to expedite the trial in pending cases to uphold the rule of law.

In its 2025 order, the Supreme Court dismissed review petitions against the cancellation of coal block allocations and upheld the convictions in the special CBI court. It ruled that there was no legal infirmity in the 2014 judgment that declared all allocations illegal, and reiterated that auction is the only permissible route for alienating natural resources. The court further directed the completion of ongoing trials within nine months.

The central dispute is whether the screening committee's discretionary allocation of coal blocks violated Article 14 of the Constitution, lacking transparency and competitive bidding, and whether top officials, including the Prime Minister, could be held accountable for procedural irregularities that caused a presumptive loss of billions of rupees to the state.

The case fundamentally reshaped India's approach to natural resource allocation, making auctions mandatory and ending discretionary allotments. It reinforced the public perception that even the highest executive offices could face judicial scrutiny for policy decisions tinged with corruption. The prolonged legal battle intensified the demand for transparency in governance and galvanized civil society’s use of public interest litigation to challenge crony capitalism, significantly impacting India's anti-corruption discourse.