India, Aug. 3 -- There is an old saying that courts pronounce judgments, but history delivers the final verdict. Every now and then, however, history requires the assistance of a court to set the record straight. That is what happened when the Supreme Court exonerated former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation case, eleven years after the case was registered and 17 months after he had departed this world.

Justice came, but much too late. When I wrote about the CBI court's decision in 2015 to summon the former Prime Minister as an accused, I welcomed it in an editorial for the New Indian Express. My reasoning was simple. No individual, however exalted, should be above the law. If the Court found sufficient grounds ...