Enquiry against Mulayam, Akhilesh closed in 2013: CBI

The CBI has informed the Supreme Court that it had closed the enquiry against Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, his son former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav and another son Prateek Yadav into the allegation of acquisition of disproportionate assets due to lack of sufficient evidence, more than six years ago.

After conducting a further enquiry in “fair, impartial and professional manner”, the CBI has independently taken a decision on August 7, 2013, to close its probe, it said.

“On careful examination of documents, statement of witnesses and the version of suspects during the course of further enquiry, sufficient evidence to support the allegations of possession of disproportionate assets, jointly or individually, against Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family members could not be brought out,” it said.

The further probe in the preliminary enquiry commenced after the apex court's judgement on December 13, 2012, and concluded on August 7, 2013, the CBI informed the court in an affidavit.

“Since no prima facie evidence of the commission of cognisable evidence against the suspects was found during the enquiry, hence the preliminary enquiry was not converted into a criminal case or FIR and as such no further enquiry was conducted after August 7, 2013,” it said.

The CBI's response was filed on the top court's order to inform about the status of its probe.

The court's order was passed on March 25 on a miscellaneous application filed by petitioner Vishwanath Chaturvedi.

He contended that the CBI has "utterly" failed to intimate the status of the case nor did it inform about the filing of any final report either before the jurisdictional magistrate or the apex court in view of the directions issued in two judgments of March 01, 2007 and December 13, 2012, respectively.

In its reply, the CBI said since the preliminary enquiry was not a criminal investigation as envisaged under the Criminal Procedure Code, hence there was no legal requirement for it to submit a report before the jurisdictional court. However, the CBI claimed it has submitted a report to the Central Vigilance Commission on October 8, 2013.

In December 2012, the court had directed CBI to go ahead with the probe against the then SP Chief and his then Chief Minister son, while dropping the investigation against Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh.

The applicant claimed after payment of consideration, and acquisition of properties by Mulayam, the assets disproportionate to his known sources of income were found to be Rs 2.99 Cr. Further, if the assets of the entire family were taken into account, the assets disproportionate to the known sources of income were found to be Rs 9.22 Cr, the value of the assets being Rs 24 crores in 2013.