The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to hear in open court a petition seeking a review of the judgment that granted relief to the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, in the disproportionate assets case filed against her by the CBI.
A Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and Dipak Misra, after going through the petition filed by Kamlesh Verma in the chamber, directed the matter to be listed for hearing on October 9. Alleging that there has been manifest wrong and miscarriage of justice in letting off Ms. Mayawati, Mr. Verma sought a review of the judgment after the CBI decided not to file any review petition.
Acting on a petition from Ms. Mayawati, the Bench, on July 6, quashed the FIR registered against her by the CBI. It said: “The impugned FIR is without jurisdiction and any investigation pursuant thereto is illegal. After reading all the orders of this Court, we are satisfied that this Court being the ultimate custodian of the fundamental rights did not issue any direction to the CBI to conduct a roving inquiry against the assets of the petitioner commencing from 1995 to 2003 even though the Taj Heritage Corridor Project was conceived only in July, 2002 and an amount of Rs. 17 crore was released in August/September, 2002.”
Mr. Verma said in his petition, “There was an error apparent in the judgment on the face of record because substantial questions of law and compelling facts escaped notice and consideration of this Court whereby manifest wrong has been done causing irreparable injury and loss to the rule of law and grave miscarriage of justice.”
“The court has failed to perform its duty as the protector and preserver of the belie Constitution and upholder of rule of law by quashing the FIR against Ms. Mayawati. Further, the judgment under review belies the requirement of public policy that cases of corruption by public servants cannot be dealt with by Courts with a technical approach. Rather, public policy required that even if there was some technical flaw in the investigation, same could not have been given precedence over the overwhelming evidence collected by the CBI against Ms. Mayawati,” the petition said.
