New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Friday sought CBI`s stand on former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly`s plea against a trial court order, which charged her for allegedly taking bribe to recommend to the then NDA government a fake defence gadget supply deal to the Army 11 years ago.
Issuing notice to the CBI on Jaitly`s plea, Justice Mukta Gupta sought its reply by August 16.
A special CBI court had on March 5 farmed charges against Jaitly and two others for conspiring with each other and "accepting gratification" for obtaining supply order of a defence equipment, albeit fictitious, for a private firm.
Challenging the framing of charges against Jaitly, her counsel Ram Jethmalani contended before the court that the transcript of video footage does not show any criminality attached to the petitioner as she had merely said that if the product is of good quality, the government should consider the deal in national interest.
The case against Jaitly had been lodged on the basis of a sting `Operation Westend,` conducted by news portal tehelka.Com in 2000, purportedly exposing alleged corruption in defence deals.
George Fernandes, founder of Samata party, was the Defence Minister at that time.
The court had framed charges against the trio for offences of criminal conspiracy under IPC and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) dealing with `taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant`.
Special CBI Judge Kawal Jeet Arora had put Jaitly, her erstwhile party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and retired Major General S P Murgai on trial after they pleaded "not guilty" to the charges framed by the court against them.
PTI
