SC pulls up CBI over delay in appealing Babri verdict

At this, Rao requested he be allowed to file an additional affidavit to explain the delay and bring out all the reasons. This plea was immediately turned down by the bench, saying it could not let the CBI improve its case now by placing on record additional facts.

"When you filed your first affidavit, the court master asked you to file a better affidavit. Now you have filed another affidavit. Can we now be asking you to file another affidavit only to improve your case? We will not permit you to file any more affidavit in any form," the bench said.

Senior lawyers K K Venugopal and Ravi Shankar Prasad, who appeared for Advani and others, also objected to putting on record any new material. "In a normal case, we would not have any objection but this is purely political. Time is being sought to only further political agenda. They were given sufficient time and so now they only want to improve upon their case," they said.

The bench accepted their submissions and asked Rao to argue on the question of limitation only on the basis of available documents. It, however, allowed the CBI to place on record other documents that formed part of the orders passed by the Special CBI court and the Allahabad High Court in 2010, wherein conspiracy charges were dropped against a group including Advani and Kalyan Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in December 1992.

The others against whom charges were dropped included Satish Pradhan, C R Bansal, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, V H Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, R V Vedanti, Paramhans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, B L Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.

The court will now hear the case on February 13.

... contd.

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