Rao Told To Appear At Vigyan Bhawan Court In Jmm Case

The special judge, Ajit Bharihoke, also issued summons directing former ministers Buta Singh and Satish Sharma to appear before the special court on the same day.

The court directed the Tihar jail authorities to produce the four JMM leaders, Shibu Soren, Suraj Mandal, Simon Marandi and Shailendra Mahato, all of whom were chargesheeted by CBI on October 30 along with Rao, Buta Singh and Satish Sharma, at Vigyan Bhawan on November 13.

The four leaders were arrested on September five by the CBI and at present are lodged in high security Tihar jail in judicial custody, which was yesterday extended till November 13.

With this the Vigyan Bhawan would be the venue for the trial of one lakh dollar Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case, the St Kitts forgery case and the bribery case. Rao is an accused in all the three cases.It was alleged by the CBI that huge bribes were paid to the four JMM leaders to buy their votes in favour of Congress government when it was facing no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha in July 1993.

On the issuance of summons, counsel for Rao, R K Anand said I will do something after November six. When asked whether he would approach the Delhi High Court for quashing of the summons, Anand said, I cannot say anything right now.

The cbi had received a complaint from rashtriya mukti morcha president ravinder kumar alleging that rao in criminal conspiracy with v c shukla, r k dhawan, ajit singh, capt sharma, former haryana chief minister bhajan lal and industrialist lalit suri had bribed the jmm leaders to get their support to defeat the no-confidence motion.

Capt sharma arrived in new delhi yesterday afternoon from london and was likely to be questioned by cbi sleuths today.

The cbi also told the delhi high court yesterday that they would complete the probe in regard to the alleged role of shukla, dhawan, lal, ajit singh and suri within two months.

The fir filed by the cbi in march 1996 had mentioned all the persons named by kumar in his complaint except buta singh.

The court today after issuing summons to rao, singh and capt sharma, took up the hearing of the remand proceedings relating to the four jmm leaders., whose judicial remand period was expiring today.