On Congress complaint, EC orders FIR against Jaya for ‘hiding’ property

The ADG of Uttar Pradesh Police, Brij Lal, said Lucknow SSP Akhil Kumar was taking legal opinion before the FIR is filed by the police against the Samajwadi Party MP.

Principal Secretary, Vidhan Sabha, R P Pandey, who was the returning officer for the elections, said: “We have ordered that an FIR be lodged against the MP for giving a false affidavit with her nomination papers for the June 2006 elections.”

The action followed a complaint to the Election Commission by a Congress leader, Amir Haider, accusing Jaya of concealing information pertaining to some property purchased by her husband, Amitabh Bachchan, in Barabanki district in the state.

Jaya was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha on June 8, 2006 after she was disqualified in March 2006 from being a member of the Upper House in the wake of the office of profit controversy. Within months after her re-election, she was issued a notice by Pandey, who was asked to look into the matter following Haider’s complaint to the Commission.

An inquiry was ordered during which Jaya contended that she had not concealed any property details.

In his complaint, Haider alleged that out of three properties registered in Bachchan’s name in Daulatpur village of Barabanki, Jaya had mentioned only one in her affidavit filed before Pandey on June 1, 2006.

In her reply to the returning officer on March 19, 2007, Jaya had said that plot numbers 711 and 793 in Daulatpur were registered in her husband’s name on June 4, 2006, three days after filing her nomination papers.

Pandey’s report said that as per the reports of the Barabanki district magistrate and Fatehpur tehsildar, the said plots were purchased by Bachchan on May 15, 2006, through one Vinay Kumar Shukla, and the deal was finalised through an affidavit on the same date.

It was found that Bachchan was the owner of the three properties and Jaya’s explanation was not acceptable, said Pandey, citing a Supreme Court order in which it was stated that once a sale deed was signed the purchaser had claim on the land.

“Under such...