SC issues notice to CBI, asks for report on investigation against Akhilesh, Mulayam

New Delhi: In what could come as bad news for Akhilesh and Mulayam Yadav before the Lok Sabha 2019 election, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to CBI regarding the probe it had carried out into alleged disproportionate assets of the two political leaders.

Acting on a petition filed in the top court seeing direction to CBI on the status report of its investigations, a bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi gave the investigative agency two weeks to reply in the matter. Vishwanath Chaturvedi, the petitioner, had demanded that the CBI submit a report on the action it took, as per SC orders in 2007 and 2012, into investigations against Akhilesh and Mulayam.

The CBI probe against the father-son duo was ordered during the Congress-led UPA government's tenure. 

In 2007, the top court had ordered the CBI to go ahead with the probe against Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in a disproportionate assets case. 

The top court ordered a CBI inquiry on March 1, 2007, into the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by the Yadav family, on public interest litigation (PIL) by an advocate, Vishwanath Chaturvedi, reportedly a Congress leader.

The apex court, however, dropped the CBI probe against Dimple Yadav, daughter-in-law of Mulayam and wife of Akhilesh, saying that she was not holding any public office and she was only a private person holding no position.

The top court had ordered a CBI inquiry against the Yadav family in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by Chaturvedi, reportedly a Congress leader.

Akhilesh, now SP president, has accused the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of misusing the CBI for political vendetta.