Following Union Home Minister L K Advani's direction to the CBI to probe Sharma's nexus, the agency has begun its Preliminary Enquiry (PE) by shortlisting these people.

Senior officials, however, cautioned that none of the listed people could be termed as accused at this particular stage. The very purpose of initiating a PE (a mandatory requirement in such matters), it is explained, is to probe their role in detail and weed out guilty from the innocent. ``None of them will be interrogated now. It is only after the completion of the PE that we will decide who all are fit for interrogation. Thereal probe will start thereafter,'' The Indian Express was told today.

The 26 top-ranking politicians who figure in the list have their roots in various parties, including the Congress, the BJP, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha and some of which are now defunct. While three of them are ex-Prime Ministers, five are ex-CMs, six held Cabinet portfolios in different Ministries and four were Ministers of State. Apart from these people, seven others are, at present, senior office-bearers in a national party.

Some IAS and IPS officers, too, figure in the list. Two of the IAS officers currently occupy the posts of Secretaries in the Central Government while seven are IPS officers. Beside, the PE will also look into the role of four industrialists and six journalists who reportedly had a ``close rapport'' with Sharma, sources said.

Reports reaching Union Home Ministry, which is closely monitoring all developments on Sharma front, suggests that the CBI and the IB had started inquiring into his underworldconnections in 1996 itself. In May 1997, say sources, the then Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah recorded the complaint of Y Ranjan, a former JNU lecturer and convenor of National Campaign Against Corruption, that Sharma had forcibly occupied a farm house in Chattarpur, West Delhi.

The complaint was promptly referred to the then Police Commissioner Tilak Raj Kakkar who in turn asked the Special Task Force (STF) of the city police to investigate the matter and, if need be, slap criminal charges on Sharma.

This particular lead turned out to Sharma's undoing. In August 1997, the STF registered the first case against Sharma under Sections 428, 406 and 506/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In January 1998, the STF booked Sharma yet again. In its FIR no. 1/98, it accused him under Sections 448 and 506/34 of grabbing C-31 Mayfair Gardens house which, according to the complaint, belonged to a Mumbai resident Laxman Givnani.