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 Mr. 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 Mr. Yadav.
Seeking to review its order, Mr. Yadav and his family members submitted that there was no evidence against them. They said they were 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, Mr. 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.”
