By IANS,
New Delhi : A Delhi court Friday deferred till Oct 13 the hearing on the bail plea of Sudheendhra Kulkarni, a close aide of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani, and two former BJP MPs jailed for their alleged role in the 2008 cash-for-votes scam in parliament.
Special Judge Sangita Dhingra Sehgal put off the hearing on the bail pleas of Kulkarni and former MPs Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora after hearing arguments for over two hours.
“All the bail applications will be heard Oct 13,” Sehgal ruled.
Saying that the BJP trio wanted to expose corruption and that their role had been that of a whistleblower, their defence counsel said: “The accused tried to expose the purchase of MPs for securing victory in the confidence vote that the government was seeking in Lok Sabha (in July 2008).”
“It was only a sting operation to expose rampant corruption. It was to expose the horse-trading going on at the time of the trust vote,” he added.
Public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan, however, vehemently opposed the submission, saying that if the intention was to expose horse-trading then why was BJP leader Arun Jaitley not in the know of it.
Citing Jaitley’s statement that he had known anything before the incident took place July 22, 2008, Mohan said: “Has there been any intention of the MPs to expose corruption, then the party high command should have been kept in loop. He was totally unaware (of it) as per his statement. The entire scam was but a conspiracy.”
Pressing for bail, the defence counsel added that the chargesheet had been filed and the probe was completed so there is no question that the accused tampering with evidence, influencing witnesses or absconding.
The public prosecutor opposed this, saying bail should be denied as the crime was very serious and grave in nature.
“This is a very serious crime and all the accused are influential people who if released on bail can influence the witnesses and tamper the evidence,” Mohan said.
On July 22, 2008, Kulaste and Bhagora, as also sitting MP Ashok Argal, had waved wads of currency notes in the Lok Sabha just hours ahead of the trust vote, alleging they were given the money to vote in favour of the Manmohan Singh government.
After a Supreme Court rap for shoddy probe, police July 17 made the first arrest in the case. They took into custody Sanjeev Saxena, a former aide of Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh.
Three days later, middleman Suhail Hindustani was arrested. On Sep 6, Amar Singh, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahabir Singh Bhagora were taken into custody. Argal was chargesheeted Oct 3 after Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar gave her permission for this.
Kulkarni was the sixth person to be arrested in the case. He was arrested when he appeared before the court Sep 27.