SC asks CBI to file reply in DA case against Mulayam, Akhilesh

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file a reply on a plea seeking the status of the probe against Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his sons Akhilesh and Prateek Yadav in an alleged disproportionate assets case.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta sought CBI's response on a petition filed by lawyer Vishwanath Chaturvedi alleging that Yadav amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.

In a previous hearing on March 25, the top court had issued a notice to the CBI and asked the agency to file its reply within two weeks.

Mulayam filed an affidavit in the apex court on Thursday, claiming innocence in the DA case.

Chaturvedi's petition has said that the agency has "utterly failed" to intimate either the apex court or report to the jurisdictional magistrate in respect of the probe done and its status.

It has alleged that Mulayam had amassed disproportionate assets amounting to over Rs 100 crore during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh between 1999 and 2005.

The plea filed in February has said the CBI has taken a long time to complete the preliminary inquiry in the matter which has been probed since 2007.

In 2005, Chaturvedi had filed a petition in the apex court seeking a CBI probe 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 their known sources of income.