‘Mistakes’ behind CBI letting Mulayam off

NEW DELHI: If you believe the Supreme Court judgment of March 1 last year directing a CBI probe into the alleged disproportionate assets of Mulayam Singh Yadav and his kin, then the SP leader’s son, Akhilesh Yadav, was “completely involved in full-time political activities” in 1977 when he was barely four years old. This mistake along with other glaring legal lacunae in the judgment formed the basis of the legal advice to the Centre to drop proceedings on the preliminary investigation report submitted by the CBI. The opinion stated: “There seems to be an error in the approach with regard to the assets of Akhilesh Yadav. In the first place, it is to be noted that in the judgment, it is stated that Akhilesh Yadav was involved in full-time political activities since the year 1977. In the status report (of CBI), it is stated that Akhilesh Yadav was born on July 1, 1973, and, therefore, it is difficult to understand how Akhilesh Yadav could be involved in full scale political activities since the age of four.” The opinion also felt that the judgment authored by Justice A R Lakshmanan, who has since retired as Supreme Court judge and taken over as chairperson of the Law Commission, was contrary to a 1992 ruling of a three-judge SC Bench. It was unable to comprehend the circumstances under which the CBI probe was ordered, especially when “there is no allegation in the PIL that the assets of the other family members are benami. At least nothing is reflected in the judgment that the properties held by the members of the family were benami properties of Mulayam Singh Yadav.” Immediately after the March 1, 2007, judgment directing a preliminary probe into the assets of Mulayam and other family members, Akhilesh had moved a petition seeking review of the judgment, which is still pending. Yadav Junior had submitted a compact disc containing recorded concersations between petitioner Vishwanath Chaturvedi and a reporter and requested the apex court to examine it since it purportedly cast aspersions on the author of the judgment. When this review petition came for hearing before a Bench headed by Justice Lakhsmanan on March 16, a fortnight after the judgment was delivered, he recused from hearing the plea with tears in his eyes, claiming that he had received an anonymous letter at his residence casting aspersions on his integrity, which he termed as “shocking”. Two months after his retirement as a Supreme Court judge on March 22, Justice Lakshmanan was appointed chairperson of the Law Commission on May 22, 2007

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