Nirmal Yadav makes appearance before court, granted bail

Accompanied by her lawyer S K Garg and lawyer and family friend Preduman Yadav, 62-year-old Justice Yadav appeared before the Court of Special Judge Ritu Tagore nearly 30 minutes after the proceedings in the case had started.

The trial court granted Justice Yadav bail on a surety of Rs 25,000, which was offered by Preduman Yadav. Justice Yadav was present inside the Court for nearly 15 minutes and left immediately after signing the bail bond.

The court fixed September 16 as the next date of hearing in the case.

Minutes before she arrived, a Chandigarh based lawyer, who identified himself as M D S Gill, made an appearance before the Court contending that he wanted to bring some "vital facts" pertaining to the case before the Court.

"I have so much material (relating to the case) to expose the case, which I got just a week back," Gill contended.

However, after learning that Gill was neither a complainant nor a witness, the Judged directed him to follow proper procedure.

"You have no locus standi in the case," the Judge told him, adding, "There is a procedure, move an application first or a lodge a complaint with the police".

The Judge directed Gill to place whatever facts he had to say in his application and submit it to special public prosecutor in the case and senior lawyer Anupam Gupta.

The CBI special court here had earlier summoned Justice Yadav to personally appear before it on May 19, July 9 and August 1, but she had failed to appear.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court was rocked by controversy after a sum of Rs 15 lakh was wrongly delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, another judge of the High Court here, on August 13, 2008, following which she reported the matter to Chandigarh Police.

The money, allegedly meant for Justice Yadav, was said to have been delivered to Justice Kaur due to confusion over their names.

Justice Yadav had denied the allegation that the money was meant for her and proceeded on leave after the case surfaced. Later, she was transferred as a Judge of the Uttarakhand High Court.

Yadav had moved the High Court here on August 18 seeking anticipatory bail as she apprehended her arrest in the case.

The High Court, while granting her interim bail, had directed her to confirm her bail by appearing before the trial court today where the CBI had filed a charge sheet against her on corruption charges. The documents pertaining to the case were supplied to Justice Yadav today.

The counsel of one of the accused wanted a copy of notification by which Gupta was appointed as Special Public Prosecutor in the case.

Gupta later told reporters that his appointment had been made by the Union Government on August 8 under Section 24 (clause 8) of CrPC appointing him as Special PP in the case. The notification of his appointment was also placed before the Court.

Counsel of Ravinder Singh, an accused in the case, requested the Court that CBI may be asked to withdraw the lookout notice issued against him in August 2008 after he went absconding.

Anupam Gupta later told reporters that Yadav will have to appear in the case on the next date of hearing. "As of now, she has not sought any exemption from appearing in person," Gupta said, adding that her passport had not been taken by the CBI in the case.

Justice Yadav had earlier submitted before the court that she had been falsely implicated by the CBI, politicians and bureaucrats, contending that they have made her a scapegoat because her brother was a minister in the Haryana government.

Her brother Capt Ajay Singh Yadav is a six-time Congress MLA from Rewari and currently holds the power portfolio in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in the state.

The agency had on March 4 filed a charge sheet against Justice Yadav and four others for alleged criminal conspiracy and corruption in the scam. The others include advocate Sanjeev Bansal, Delhi based hotelier Ravinder Singh Bhasin, Chandigarh-based businessman Rajiv Gupta and Nirmal Singh.

The 25-page charge sheet against Yadav and the others was filed in the court of the Special CBI Judge here under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.