Rao, Others To Be Charged In Jmm Case On Sep 19

A special court here yesterday fixed September 19 for formal framing of charges against former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and 19 others in the multi-crore MPs bribery case.

The special judge, Ajit Bharihoke, turned down the oral pleas by the counsel of the accused to extend the date by at least two weeks to give them sufficient time to study the Delhi High Court judgement which had rejected petitions by the accused persons against May 6 order of the trial court deciding to frame charges against them.

The counsel told the court that they were moving an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court order and should be given some time to study the judgement.

Bharihoke said the high court, in its September 12 order dismissing the plea of the accused, had issued specific direction to them to appear in the court by September 19.

He said, if any stay was granted by the higher courts, he would look into the matter on September 19.

Surat Singh, counsel for Anadi Charan Das and Abhey Pratap Singh, told the court that he had moved a petition in the high court to stay the trial court proceedings till September 30 to give enough time to the accused to study the high court judgement and file an appeal in the apex court.

He said even the certified copies of its judgement had not beeen made available to the accused by the high court.

DC Mathur and PP Malhotra, counsel for Satish Sharma and Bhajan Lal, also made similar requests.