Elated Mayawati welcomes SC verdict in DA case

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Thursday welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court on the disproportionate asset case against her and said that she is extremely relieved and happy that the apex court has given her justice.

"In 2003, when the BJP was in power, it misused the CBI and I was troubled in the disproportionate asset case, and this issue has been going on since 2003, but I believed in the Supreme Court that it would give me justice," she told media here today.

"But then, some people filed a review petition. Today, the Supreme Court has again given its verdict on this case and I have been given justice by the Supreme Court and I am very grateful for it,' she added.

BSP supremo also said that she would have been happier if her mentor Kanshi Ram were alive to hear this verdict.

"I wish Kanshi Ram would have been alive to hear this verdict, I would have been very happy," she said.

Mayawati also expressed her gratitude to all her party workers for standing by her side during these difficult times.

The Supreme Court, earlier in the day, refused to reopen a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in a nine-year-old disproportionate assets (DA) case against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati.

A senior BSP leader and Mayawati's lawyer Satish Chandra Mishra on Thursday said the Supreme Court refused to entertain the review petition and the DA case finally comes to a closure.

"Supreme Court in a detailed and lengthy judgement, reiterated its earlier decision and said that it did not find a single ground to entertain this review petition and the DA case which was illegally started by the CBI in 2003 finally comes to a closure," he told media here today.

"The Court had held that the CBI had exceeded its jurisdiction by lodging an FIR against Mayawati without any direction in the DA case for which they had no authority," he added.

Mishra also said the Supreme Court dismissed the review petition filed by an intervenor Kamlesh Verma after hearing arguments at length.

A bench of Justices P Sathasivam and Dipak Misra, which had clarified that CBI is free to probe the BSP chief during an earlier hearing on the case, passed the order clarifying its own judgement.

According to reports, the Supreme Court bench said that its order on Mayawati was only in connection with the Taj Corridor case and the court did not go into other aspects.

The bench had said on May 1 that the FIR in the DA case was quashed because the agency proceeded against her without properly understanding its orders which were confined to the Taj Corridor case.

The court also said that judgement had not taken away CBI's power to proceed against her in a separate Disproportionate Assets case.

According to reports, the review petition was filed by Kamlesh Verma who was an intervener in the case filed by Mayawati in the apex court for quashing the DA case against her.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had on July 6 quashed the nine-year-long disproportionate assets case against her and had pulled up the CBI for exceeding its jurisdiction by lodging an FIR against her without any direction from it.