Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court Thursday issued a fresh notice to Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, run by Union minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louis, on a petition seeking direction for lodging of an FIR and monitoring of the case by the court.
The Lucknow Bench comprising Justices Uma Nath Singh and Satish Chandra fixed March 7 as the next date of hearing.
No person appeared on behalf of the trust on Thursday and it was told that the notice issued earlier by the court was not served to the trust as per the office report.
The court said that the notice should be served through post as well as by hand.
Earlier the court had issued notice to the trust on February 1.
Through the notice, the court had sought reply from the trust that whether the alleged misappropriated fund could be deposited with the Central Social Justice and Empowerment department.
The Bench had on January 16 sought a report from the Economic Offences wing on investigation into the alleged irregularities in the matter of the trust.
On February 1, as directed by the Bench, investigating officer of EOW S K Singh appeared before the court along with the progress report and other records.
Singh told the court that so far statements of 37 witnesses have been recorded and the misappropriation was alleged in 17 districts amounting to Rs 1.3 crore.
The petitioner Nutan Thakur had asked the court to direct Principal Secretary (home) of Uttar Pradesh and Economic Offences Wing to immediately lodge an FIR on the basis of primary investigation report conducted by Viklang Kalyan department and social welfare department in pursuance of Ministry of Social Justice as send to EOW by the state and to investigate the matter in accordance with law.
The petitioner also asked the court to monitor the probe.
Six parties, including state government through Principal Secretary (home), EOW, central government through Ministry of Social Justice, Principal Secretary social welfare UP, Aaj Tak and Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, were made respondents in the petition.
The Bench had on October 15 last year had issued notice to news channel Aaj Tak directing it to produce entire documents relating to the matter of Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust.
The EOW of UP Police had already started a probe into the matter following the government order on July 3 last year.
PTI
