3-judge bench to hear plea against Amar Singh

A three-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court will now hear the petition pertaining to allegations of money laundering and misuse of official position by former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh.

The order was passed on Friday by a division bench led by Acting Chief Justice Amitava Lala on an application filed by the leader's counsel seeking the hearing of the case on a priority basis.

Singh's counsel Kunwar Sidharth Singh said: "It is just an administrative matter. The petition was being earlier heard by a division bench, led by Justice Imtiyaz Murtaza. He has now been transferred to the Lucknow bench. We had approached the court of the Acting Chief Justice with a prayer that the petition be heard on a priority basis."

The matter is likely to come up for hearing on September 12 before the new bench. The counsel added that the proceedings in the case had been going slow for almost a year now. "The ED had applied for a modification in one of the orders of the court. However, the matter had been pending since then. Our prayer before the court was that the matter should be treated on a priority basis," he said.

The petition, filed by one Shiv Kant Tripathi in 2011, accused Singh of enriching himself to the tune of Rs 400 crore by showing fraudulent transactions through a web of companies. It had also alleged that Singh had favoured certain private firms while being the chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Development Council in 2003.

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