The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Friday told the Supreme Court that it will examine Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s plea to close the corruption case against her for having wealth exceeding her legal income, after factoring in tax authorities’ clean chit.
‘CBI will need time to re-look into the whole case in view of the representation made by Mayawati,’ Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati, appearing for the CBI, told a bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice A.K. Ganguly and Justice B.S. Chauhan.
He said that the CBI will need some time to examine her representation, which was made only three days ago. Following this, the bench adjourned to August the hearing of Mayawati’s lawsuit.
Appearing for Mayawati, senior counsel Satish Mishra and the state’s Additional Advocate General Shail Kumar Dwivedi told the bench that she has sought closure of the graft case on the basis of two recent orders passed by the commissioner of income tax (appeal), giving clean chit to her in acquisition of wealth.
They told the court that the two income tax orders, related to assessment years 2001-02 and 2002-03 and passed respectively on April 5 and 19, held that the gifts received by her for the two assessment years were ‘totally genuine and bona fide’.
Contending that the two orders completely demolished the CBI case against her, they told the court that the CBI was proceeding in a ‘discriminatory and hostile manner’ against her in the assets case.
They argued that the the CBI need to apply the same principle adopted by it in the disproportionate assets (DA) cases of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad, in which proceedings were closed on the basis of the findings of the income tax authorities and on the advice of law officers.
