By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Tuesday allowed Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to submit evidence of impropriety in the court’s March 2007 order for a probe into corruption charges against him. The court also pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for frequently changing its position in the case.
A bench of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Cyriac Joseph allowed Yadav’s plea to submit within a week his affidavit detailing his objections to the apex court March 2007 order and other materials, including a CD, which purportedly indicated judicial impropriety.
Yadav got the permission to file all the relevant material in support of his demand for review of the apex court’s March 2007 order during the hearing of an application by the CBI, which wanted the court’s permission to seek direction from the government on its next course of action after completing its probe.
The CBI’s latest plea, made in December 2008, differed from its plea of October 2007, when it had told the apex court that it had already completed the probe as its March 2007 order that also wanted the CBI to submit its probe report to the central government.
But after the probe the CBI had come back to the court saying that it wanted to submit the probe report only to the court and take direction from it on its next course of action.
The apex court Tuesday once again rebuked the CBI for its frequent flip-flop. It said: “It was quite incomprehensible what it has done (in the probe). And (if) what it has done is true, only god will save us.”
The bench made the stinging remark while referring to reports that CBI had resorted to fudging figures and turning half-truths and lies to make a corruption case against Yadav.
As CBI’s December 2008 plea came up for hearing, the bench sought to quiz it on its frequently changing positions.
Responding to the bench’s query, Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran said that the CBI had acted under the legal advice received from the law ministry.
This infuriated the bench, which remarked, “It means that you are not acting independently. You are acting on behalf of the central government.”
Conscious of the CBI’s changing stands, matching the government’s relations with Samajwadi Party, the bench had rebuked the agency on last hearing as well saying: “We do not want the CBI to become an instrument in the hands of the central government.”
The proceeding during the day saw even the government disowning the agency.
Distancing the government from the stand taken by the CBI, Solicitor General Goolam E. Vahanvati told the court: “The government had told the CBI to check its facts and do what is correct.”
The day saw the CBI getting flogged by one and all, including Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose counsel said his client has absolutely no faith in the agency and sought a judicial probe into the allegation that his client and his family member owned wealth disproportionate to his legal income.