The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Centre and CBI on a petition by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy seeking probe into Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her family's alleged links with a foreign intelligence agency and smuggling of Indian artefacts to Italy from Chennai.
Directing Centre and the CBI to file a status report on the information supplied by the petitioner, a division bench comprising Justice Devinder Gupta and Justice S K Kaul fixed January 30 as the next date of hearing.
Swamy had filed two fresh writ petitions on the issues as the court in November had given him liberty to split various issues raised by him in a single petition saying the dates mentioned in the petition were so confusing that they did not make the issues clear Swamy, in the PIL, alleged that Congress had paralysed the proceedings of Parliament in order to obtain a commitment from the government to block an inquiry by the CBI and other agencies into the allegations against Gandhi and her family.
In the other writ, Swamy alleged that investigation into the smuggling of Indian artefacts to Italy from Chennai had been dropped as CBI had in its FIR mentioned the names of Sonia Gandhi's mother and sister.
Swamy claimed that on November 13, the then minister for culture Maneka Gandhi had informed him that an inquiry would be conducted into the issue and had confirmed that she had asked for a CBI probe on the basis of materials provided by him. But within four days she was divested of the portfolio, he said.
Government during the last hearing had opposed the writ for treating it as PIL on the ground that Swamy himself was the complainant before the CBI seeking registration of an FIR into the case. Bureau Report