The Supreme Court on Wednesday admitted a petition to lodge FIR against BSP chief Mayawati over alleged disproportionate assets even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said there was no material to lodge a case against her.
The Bench of Justices AR Dave and Adarsh K Goel issued rule on the petition filed by one Kamlesh Verma who alleged that in the Taj Heritage Corridor scam, Mayawati amassed disproportionate assets, evidence of which was presented by CBI in sealed cover to the apex court during the monitoring of the Rs 175-crore scam. However, CBI dropped the probe against Mayawati’s illegal assets after the Supreme Court on July 6, 2012 quashed the FIR against her.
Seeking revival of the FIR, Verma’s counsel Kamini Jaiswal informed the court that neither the UP Government nor the Centre was willing to direct CBI to initiate probe against the BSP chief despite evidence being available with the agency. Jaiswal said that following the July 2012 decision, the apex court later clarified its order that the order should not be seen as an attempt to shield Mayawati as CBI was free to proceed against her in a separate DA case.
Representing Mayawati, senior advocate KK Venugopal raised questions on the petitioner’s interest claiming that he filed the petition out of vendetta. Venugopal said that Verma was a member of BSP but later defected to Congress after the party denied him a ticket to contest elections. But the bench was not impressed to go into the bonafides of the petitioner.
The court said, “We are not concerned with all this. let us find out the facts if all that is said here is correct. A person can file a petition with malafide intention so long as it has some substance.”