High court jolts Mayawati with notice in Taj Corridor case

LUCKNOW - In a significant development, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court Friday issued notice to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, clearly indicating reopening of the Taj Corridor case in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had earlier granted her a reprieve.

The high court bench headed by Justice Pradeep Kant has given Mayawati and her cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui three weeks to file a counter affidavit and two weeks subsequently to the CBI to file a rejoinder. He has fixed Nov 16 for the next hearing.

The order came in a public interest litigation (PIL) moved in February jointly by Anupama Singh, Kamlesh Verma and Mohammad Kateel, who questioned a special CBI court’s decision to discharge Mayawati and Siddiqui in the infamous Taj Corridor Case. The then state Governor T.V.Rajeshwar had declined to grant permission for her prosecution, causing the CBI court to discharge Mayawati and Siddiqui.

Seeking that the CBI court’s order be quashed, C.B.Pandey, counsel for the petitioners, pointed out that the governor’s permission was not required to prosecute Mayawati and her cabinet colleague in the case. He also accused the CBI of unnecessarily seeking the permission.

“The law had already been laid down by the Supreme Court in Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s case, wherein the apex court had upheld Badal’s prosecution without any prior permission of the state Governor,” argued Pandey.

According to him, “Badal’s case was not the only example; there are several other instances where CBI had not sought the governor’s permission because the matter involved large-scale corruption.”

The issue was raised when some construction was started along the bank of the Yamuna river opposite the Taj Mahal under the pretext of beautification way back in 2003, while Mayawati was doing her third stint as chief minister.

The Supreme Court suo moto took up the issue, and on July 16, 2003, directed the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry and submit a report to the court.

On Sep 18 that year, the apex court was prima facie satisfied that Mayawati and Naseemuddin Siddiqui were involved in a Rs.175 crore scam and construction was launched without obtaining the necessary statutory environmental clearances.

The apex court ordered that an FIR be registered against Mayawati, her minister Siddiqui and four other senior bureaucrats following which cases were registered against them under sections 120(B), 420, 467, 468, 471 IPC and Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI duly filed a chargesheet against Mayawati and Siddiqui as well as other officials.

In the meantime, Mayawati returned to power in May 2007. Soon after, the Uttar Pradesh governor turned down permission to prosecute the chief minister.

The petitioners alleged that the CBI’s move to seek the governor’s permission was engineered by the Congress party and therefore the whole affair was politically motivated.

Last month, the Allahabad High Court reserved its verdict in the case.

However, now that it has decided to admit the PIL, Mayawati is in for fresh trouble.