Delhi: In a major relief to the Samajwadi Party (SP), amidst the election season, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has given a clean chit to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav in the disproportionate assets case.
According to News18, CBI filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court (SC), stating that no evidence was found against the Yadavs for registering a criminal case.
The CBI informed the SC that the preliminary enquiry was closed in 2013 on finding no evidence for supporting the allegations that they had amassed wealth beyond known sources of income so as to register a Regular Case (RC) against the Yadavs. This was informed to the Central Vigilance Commission as well.
“The preliminary enquiry was not converted into a criminal case because the enquiry conducted by the respondent did not disclose the commission of a cognizable offence”, said the affidavit.
The affidavit was filed in response to SC’s direction to the CBI, on March 25, to give the status of the case. However, the apex court didn’t direct the CBI to file a criminal case. Instead, it directed the investigating agency to take an independent decision on the basis of the evidence collected.
The case was registered by the CBI in 2007 for preliminary enquiry following the directions of the SC in a writ petition filed by Congress worker and lawyer Vishwanath Chaturvedi. Though SC had also directed probe against Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh, the enquiry against her was dropped later, allowing her review petition on the finding that she was not holding any public office.
Mulayam had accused Chaturvedi of opening an old case in between the elections for political gains. In response to a notice issued to him on March 25, Mulayam had filed an affidavit stating, “Chaturvedi filed fresh plea for extraneous reasons and with an objective to gain political mileage just at the time and eve of the 2019 general elections with mala fide reasons.”
Chaturvedi’s petition, filed in February, had accused the CBI of “utterly failing” to intimate the SC or report to the jurisdictional magistrate in respect of the probe done.
Yadavs had been accused of amassing disproportionate assets worth Rs. 100 crore, during Mulayam’s tenure as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh between 1999 and 2005.
Related Articles: