New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved
its judgement on Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav`s
plea seeking review of its earlier order for a CBI inquiry
against him and family members for allegedly amassing
disproportionate assets.
A bench of justices Altamas Kabir and H L Dattu reserved
the verdict after hearing the Attorney General G E Vahanvati,
counsel for the Yadavs, and the petitioner Vishwanath
Chaturvedi.
The SC had ordered a CBI inquiry on March 1, 2007, into
the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by Yadav,
his sons Akhilesh and Prateek and daughter-in-law Dimple, on a
public interest litigation (PIL) by an advocate Vishwanath
Chaturvedi, reportedly a Congress leader.
Unlike the precedent of hearing review petitions in the
judges` chambers, the petition is being heard in the open
court at the request of Yadav.
Seeking to review its order, Yadav and his family
members submitted that there was no evidence against them who
are being harassed by political adversaries.
Senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Yadavs,
assailed the apex court`s earlier order claiming it would "set
a dangerous precedent" of allowing political opponents to file
"false and frivolous" petitions against their detractors.
During the arguments, Vahanvati, while refraining from
going into the merits of the allegations against the Yadavs,
cited a number of judicial pronouncements to drive home the
point that the apex court has powers to order a CBI inquiry in
"exceptional cases."
The apex court had directed CBI to investigate the
matter and submit its report to the union government to decide
further course of action in the case but later the
investigation agency prayed to the court to allow it to submit
the report before the Supreme Court.
It again moved another application in the apex court
seeking to withdraw its plea for submitting the report to the
apex court and instead stick to the original direction.
However, the move evoked criticism from the court.
"You (CBI) are acting at the behest of central
government and the Law Ministry. You are not acting on your
own," the court had remarked at that time.
Chaturvedi had alleged in his petition that the SP
chief and his family members had amassed assets worth over Rs
100 crore through corrupt means during his tenure as the Chief
Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
PTI
