Hearing a PIL seeking to know why the CBI was seeking the Governor’s sanction for proseuction of Chief Minister Mayawati in the Taj Heritage Corridor case, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday asked the agency to start arguments in the case.

The PIL was filed on February 20 by Kamlesh Verma, a resident of Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh. Noting that the CBI had completed its investigation in the case and drawn up a chargesheet against several persons including Mayawati, Verma had cited the case of Parkash Singh Badal v/s State of Punjab of 2007 to argue that sanction wasn’t needed to proceed against the Chief Minister.

In Badal’s case, the Supreme Court had stated that in cases of forgery and cheating, no sanction is needed, “because it then does not come under discharge of official duty”.

The counsel representing the CBI informed the Bench that the designated CBI court did not take cognisance of the case since sanction for prosecution was not given by the competent authority. It has also argued that the Supreme Court ruling in one particular case cannot be referred to as a general law.