The Supreme Court on Friday reiterated its earlier direction to the Delhi Police to trace the source of the money in the ‘cash-for-votes' scam and granted four weeks to complete its investigation.
A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha, after perusing the status report of the police, told Additional Solicitor-General Harin Raval, “You have made substantial progress. The charge sheet has also been filed. But still the source of money has not been found. You [Delhi Police] have not done what we said earlier. Find out the source of money. You can do it, if you want to do it. You are capable of doing so.”
The Bench then disposed of the writ petition filed by the former Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, and 13 others, under the banner of the India Rejuvenation Initiative, for a direction to probe the scam as revealed by the WikiLeaks and published in The Hindu.
On July 22, 2008, three BJP members displayed wads of currency totalling Rs.1 crore in the Lok Sabha, alleging that they were given the money by the floor managers of the United Progressive Alliance to secure their support during a trust motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Left parties withdrew support to the government over the India-U.S. nuclear deal.
Justice Lodha told the petitioner's counsel: “The objective has been achieved. Once the charge sheet is filed everything should be left to the criminal court concerned which is hearing the case. We were on minor aspect. Who were involved and in what manner is to be decided by the trial court.”
Status report
The police, in its status report, informed the court of the filing of the charge sheet in the Tis Hazari court against six persons, including Samajwadi Party's former general secretary, Amar Singh; BJP leader L.K. Advani's former aide Sudheendra Kulkarni; two ex-BJP MPs Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahabir Singh Bhagora; Amar Singh's former aide Sanjeev Saxena; and alleged BJP activist Sohail Hindustani.
It said that while Saxena and Hindustani are in judicial custody, the trial court had issued summons to all the accused to appear on September 6.
The charge sheet accused Amar Singh and Kulkarni of “conspiring” and “masterminding” the bribe episode to win the MPs' votes in the confidence motion.
