Giving major relief to BSP supremo Mayawati, the Supreme Court on Friday quashed a nine-year-old disproportionate assets case against her. It also pulled up the CBI for “exceeding its jurisdiction” by filing an FIR against her without any direction from it.
This verdict will add to Ms Mauawati’s political strength both at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Those close to her promptly said BSP support to the UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee had “nothing to do with its electoral and political understanding with the Congress-led UPA”.
Ms Mayawati told partymen in Lucknow: “Our workers didn’t get perturbed by Opposition forces bent on creating hurdles and stood by me”. She said she was “thankful” to the Supreme Court for “giving us justice”. Celebrations broke out at the BSP office in Lucknow immediately after the verdict and sweets were distributed.
The CBI has, meanwhile, indicated it is looking at the option of filing a review petition against the order. The two-judge bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and Deepak Mishra held that the DA case against Ms Mayawati was “unwarranted” and that the CBI had proceeded against her without properly understanding its orders, confined to the Taj Corridor case relating to the release of `17 crores by the UP government allegedly without sanction. “There was no direction to lodge another FIR against Mayawati for allegedly amassing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income.”
The BJP described the verdict as an “indictment of the UPA government”, with party MP Tarun Vijay saying: “The UPA has been using the CBI to target rivals and garner political support for survival.” Law minister Salman Khurshid responded that “it’s not correct to link it with politics”, and felt it was “unfair to say it has anything to do with the country’s politics”. The Samajwadi Party, meanwhile, accused the CBI of committing “technical errors”.