New Delhi: Surprised at a special CBI court summoning former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Hindalco chief Kumar Mangalam Birla as accused in coal block case, industry captain Adi Godrej on Friday said such developments neither bode well for investment nor create a good atmosphere.

“I am surprised ex-PM and Kumar Mangalam Birla have been summoned as an accused because they had a meeting. It is not uncommon for senior industrialists to meet a minister or even a Prime Minister when an important matter needs to be discussed,” Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej told a private television channel in an interview.

He further said, “If you keep summoning everybody as an accused, businesses will get disheartened and wouldn’t want to invest in that country...It doesn’t create a good atmosphere. I hoped it is brought to an end at an early point.”

The court had summoned Mr Singh along with industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P. C. Parakh and three others as accused in a case pertaining to allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 and asked them to appear before it on April 8.

Earlier on Thursday, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani too expressed sadness over former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being summoned as an accused in a coal scam case. “This is bad. I don’t want a former PM to be summoned like this, I hope he is proven innocent,” he told ANI.

RJD president Lalu Prasad too on Friday strongly defended former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was summoned by a court in the coal block allocation scam case and charged the BJP with “causing danger to his life” by “harassing” him.

“The whole world knows that Manmohan Singh is an honest man...BJP by levelling allegation of theft on him (in coal gate) is posing danger to his life,” Mr Prasad said. “Mr Singh underwent an open heart surgery. BJP’s false charges on him is posing danger to his life,” he said.