SC orders status update of assets case against Mulayam

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the CBI to inform within two weeks about the status of its probe into alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and his sons, former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav and Prateek Yadav.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta rejected a contention by senior advocate C A Sundaram, representing Mulayam and Akhilesh that the notice should be kept in abeyance due to ensuing General Elections 2019.

"Why should we not ask the CBI as to what happened in terms of orders issued in 2007," the bench said.

"We would like to know the status of the probe," the bench added.

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

The applicant contended that the CBI has "utterly" failed to intimate the status of the case nor information 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.

"The CBI failed to update the status of the case and stage of the investigation as there is 11 long years lapsed from writ judgment and six years lapsed from the review order," his plea claimed.

Chaturvedi, who initially filed the writ petition in the top court, contended that the matter as it stood, without even registration of the FIR, has already been "delayed inordinately and unnecessarily".

"The unusual delay in filing a regular case against the offenders has not only caused some irremediable and irrecoverable damaged to the whole case but also raised serious questions of credibility and integrity of our investigating agencies," he contended.

In addition to all this, he claimed the offenders were further "emboldened to unleash terror and intimidation to the informers/complainants".

The applicant pointed out that the top court, in its order issued in 2012, gave the CBI complete freedom as to how it wanted to proceed against the accused. But the RTI query made by him elicited no material response.

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.