SC turns down Maya plea in Taj scam case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday turned down the plea of UP chief minister Mayawati challenging Allahabad High Court notice to her on a PIL seeking re-opening of Rs 175-crore Taj Corridor case against her. The apex court rejected the CM’s plea that the opposition parties may draw political mileage from the issue.

“We are not bothered about what the opposition is going to demand,” said a bench comprising Justice VS Sirpurkar and Justice B Sudershan Reddy.

Senior Counsel K K Venugopal appearing for Ms Mayawati submitted before the bench that the PIL has the propensity to destabilise the UP government. The PIL, if allowed to be heard, would give the opposition an excuse to demand her government’s resignation, said Mr Venugopal.

The court, however, was not impressed with the submission. “Destabilisation? Why should we go into all those things”? remarked the bench. The bench also refused to borrow the plea that the case was politically motivated and four other similar petitions on the same issue were earlier dismissed by the apex court.

The judges said that they found no reason to interfere with the high court order. However, the bench gave liberty to Ms Mayawati to raise the issue of maintainability of the PIL before the high court.

The high court had issued notices to Ms Mayawati and her cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui on the PIL filed by Kamlesh Verma and two others seeking resumption of proceedings against the CM in the multi-crore case.

In June 2007, the CBI court had discharged Ms Mayawati and Mr Siddiqui in the case on the ground that then governor T.V.Rajeshwar declined to grant permission for her prosecution.