All eyes on Taj Corridor case now

Former chief minister Mayawati may have got relief in the disproportionate assets case from the Supreme Court, but the case arising from the Taj Heritage Corridor scam case of 2003, which actually led to the DA case, is still pending in the Allahabad High Court since 2009.

The next hearing is scheduled before a bench of Justices Imtiyaz Murtaza and S C Chaurasia on July 10.

The CBI, which investigated the case, had filed a chargesheet against Mayawati, former minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui, former principal secretary of environment R K Sharma and former environment secretary Rajendra Prasad under IPC sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 before a special CBI court here in 2007.

It said that they had siphoned off Rs 175 crore in the name of construction of a corridor around the Taj Mahal and other monuments in Agra, causing loss to the government exchequer.

But the judge did not admit the chargesheet and discharged the accused on the ground that the then governor T V Rajeswar had withheld the sanction to prosecute Mayawati and Siddiqui in June 2007.

In 2009, three separate PILs were filed before Lucknow bench of High Court against the special CBI court's order by Kamlesh Verma, Anupama Singh and Qateel Ahmed. While the matter was pending before the court, three more PILs seeking similar order were filed in 2011 by Kashi Prasad Yadav, Mamta Singh and Sachindra Pratap Singh.

Rohit Tripathi, the lawyer for Kamlesh Verma, Kashi Prasad Yadav and Mamta Singh, told The Indian Express that while arguing on behalf of his clients, he had prayed before the court that the sanction for prosecution was not required when the charges are under IPC.

Further, he referred to the case of former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal versus State of Punjab in 2007 in which the Supreme Court had stated that in cases of forgery and cheating, "no sanction is needed, irrespective of whether it is against a public servant, because it does not come under the discharge of official duty".

... contd.

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