Cbi To Ask For More Time In Kesari Case

The division bench consisting of Chief Justice M J Rao and Justice Manmohan Sarin had heard the case on November 7 and asked the CBI to verify the charges and submit a status report.

The court took up the matter following a public interest petition by a journalist from Bihar, Madhuresh, alleging that CBI was not acting upon his complaint made in October.

According to the petition filed by counsel Prashant Bhushan, Madhuresh had submitted an affidavit to the CBI director Joginder Singh on October 7, giving details of acquisition of assets by Kesri and his family members.

The affidavit contained details of how Kesri bribed the legislators for his Rajya Sabha membership, the petitioner said. He said he had earlier sent a memorandum along the same lines to the CBI director on September 26, 1996.

There were reasons to believe the agency would not proceed with the matter until it had political clearance from Prime Minister Deve Gowda because the survival of the present government depended on the Congress party headed by

Kesri, the petitioner told the high court.

Madhuresh, who claimed to know Kesri and his family well since the 1970s, has said the Congress president was a petty trader to begin with but had amassed a huge amount of wealth, especially after becoming the AICC treasurer in 1979.

The petitioner has said he has personally seen Kesri receiving huge sums of money in suitcases at his residence in New Delhi from unidentified businessmen while he was a minister. And that he had also personally seen the Congress president giving huge bundles of currency notes in cloth bags to several Bihar MLAs to vote in his favour for his Rajya Sabha membership, both in 1988 and 1994.