Plea filed in SC seeking status of probe in disproportionate assets case against Mulayam, Akhilesh

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking direction for the CBI to place before it or jurisdictional magistrate the status report of investigation carried out by the agency into alleged disproportionate assets of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and party president Akhilesh Yadav.

The petition filed by Vishwanath Chaturvedi, an advocate, said that the CBI has utterly failed to intimate either to the apex court or report to the jurisdictional magistrate on the investigation and status of the case as directed by the court in two judgments.

Mulayam had allegedly amassed disproportionate assets worth over Rs 100 crore during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh between 1999 and 2005.

The CBI has taken an unusually long time to complete the preliminary inquiry in the highly sensitive and important matter of a long-pending investigation since 2007, said the plea, adding that even after the loss of 11 years when the verdict had come and six years after the order on review petition, the CBI has not acted in the case.

"The judgment delivered by this court on December 13, 2012, in review petitions, this court had left it completely to the CBI how the enquiry is to be proceeded with. This Court has gone so far as to hold that CBI is an independent agency is not bound to share the reports with the Union of India, almost six years lapsed from the review orders and 11 long years lapsed from the writ order...," the plea said.

In 2005, Chaturvedi had filed a plea in the apex court seeking CBI inquiry against Mulayam Singh Yadav, his sons Akhilesh and Prateek Yadav and daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav, under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly acquiring assets more than the known source of their income by misusing their power of authority.

In its March 2007 judgement, the Supreme Court had ordered the CBI to inquire into allegations against Yadav family and submit a report of its preliminary inquiry to the Centre.

The Yadav family later filed a review petition against 2007 verdict and in its December 2012 judgement, the top court gave the CBI complete freedom to go about the inquiry into allegations of disproportionate wealth.

However, the court had modified its 2007 order to exempt Dimple Yadav from the inquiry as she had not held any public post during the period under the scanner.