New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking prosecution of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh in the 2008 cash-for-vote scam and imposed a
fine of Rs one lakh on the lawyer for filing a "malafide"
petition in "gross abuse of law".
"The present petition appears to have been filed with
malafide intention with a view to gaining cheap publicity.
This is my view that the application under section 156 (3) of
the CrPC (seeking direction to police to lodge a case) is
nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law," Justice Ajit
Bharihoke said.
Justice Bharihoke also imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on
Santosh Kumar Suman, a lawyer, for filing the petition and
asked him to deposit it with the Registrar of the court within
15 days. The fine would finally be deposited with the Prime
Minister`s Relief Fund.
Suman had filed the petition against the judgement of a
Sessions court which had upheld the order of a magistrate
refusing to ask the police to probe the role of the Prime
Minister in the scam.
Dismissing the petition, the court, in its order, said
"on perusal of the allegations, it is obvious that there is no
allegation on fact which may show connivance of the respondent
(PM) in the aforesaid episode of alleged offer of bribe (to
MPs)."
"On my query to the petitioner (Suman), he states that
his complaint is based on the media reports and not on the
basis of personal knowledge or any authentic information. It
is apparent that the application does not disclose commission
of any offence by the respondent."
The lawyer had sought prosecution of the Prime Minister
alleging that he was the beneficiary as the offence was
committed to save the then UPA government.
PTI
