ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Mayawati gets anticipatory bail in pump scam

The Delhi high court today issued show-cause notices to the Central Bureau of Investigation and granted anticipatory bail to former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.

The Bahujan Samaj Party MP is apprehending arrest following a CBI first information report against her in a case pertaining to the purchase of fire-fighting floating pumps and accessories for fire service stations in Uttar Pradesh.

A division bench comprising Justices Devinder Gupta and N G Nandi directed the release of Mayawati in the event of her arrest. However, she would have to deposit a personal bond of Rs 5,000 and furnish a surety of like amount.

The bench issued the notices to the CBI on a petition moved by her for quashing the FIR of March 18 which also names nine others, including certain senior state government officials. The investigating agency was directed to reply to the notice by April 16, the next date of hearing.

The court also issued notice to the CBI on the MP's anticipatory bail application.

The CBI had filed the FIR against her under Section 120-B, 409, 420, 467, 468, 47 and 477-A of the Indian Penal Code read with 13(1)(A) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 for non-payment of bills for the fire-fighting pumps, purchased from a Madras-based firm Fire Challenges.

Senior counsel V C Mahajan, appearing for Mayawati, submitted that the FIR was inspired by political vendetta. It was registered to cause unlawful and illegal pressure on her to vote in favour of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, he said.

Mahajan contended that the contract was signed when Uttar Pradesh was under the President's rule.

In her petition, the BSP national vice-president said that, as soon as the case was registered, Doordarshan and other media gave wide publicity to it. The idea was to pressurise her and other BSP MPs to support the March 28 confidence motion. She sought protection from such trial by the media.

She urged the court to quash the first information report as Article 21 of the Constitution provided for protection of personal liberty.

Being an MP, Mayawati said she has every reason to apprehend arrest and humiliation as a result of political vendetta. She urged the court to exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.

She said the FIR was liable to be quashed as the transactions in the matter started in 1995 when the state was under the President's rule. The tenders were invited by then director of fire services Lalit Shrivastava on December 27, 1995 and an order for the supply of 157 fire-fighting floating pumps was placed on March 23, 1996 by Sunanda Prashad as director of department of industries, Uttar Pradesh.

The petitioner was nowhere in picture at the stage of negotiations or when the order for the supply of 157 floating pumps was initially placed. Her government merely repeated the order for the remaining 143 floating pumps on the basis of the agreement already concluded between the predecessor regime and the supplier.

If the present government in Uttar Pradesh headed by Kalyan Singh had any complaint regarding the quality or rate of the fire-fighting equipment, it should have appointed its arbitrator when the supplier called upon it to do so.

The BJP was a constituent of the coalition government headed by the petitioner when the repeat order was placed.

If the petitioner had shown any interest in the transaction in violation of the principle of collective responsibility of the cabinet, the complainant would have made a specific allegation in the complaint to that effect. There was, however, not even a faint suggestion in the FIR to indicate that the petitioner was at any stage personally involved in the transaction.

In her anticipatory bail application, Mayawati said she and her party will suffer irreparable loss, humiliation and injury if the arrest, pending disposal of the accompanying writ petition, is not stayed.

She said the background behind the filing of the FIR was the withdrawal of support by her party to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

The petition said that on March 15, Vajpayee was invited by President K R Narayanan to form the government at the Centre. Following this, the UP BJP unit sent a complaint on March 18 to the CBI, alleging financial irregularities in the deal.

On receiving the said complaint, the CBI promptly registered a regular case on March 18 itself.

Before registering the case, the CBI did not hold any preliminary inquiry as was usually the practice. The former chief minister alleged that the CBI did not apply its mind at all and registered the case in order to please the BJP.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report