Pursue disproportionate assets case against Mulayam: NGO urges CBI

While he declared yesterday that he is not in the race for prime minister, amid speculation that Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav would like to be a ‘kingmaker’ after the 2014 polls, only a few weeks back, the CBI is understood to have indicated its intention to close a disproportionate assets case pending against the MP from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh. With 22 MPs, the Samajwadi Party is among those that support the UPA government from the outside. Investigators of the Central Bureau of Investigation are understood to have submitted to the CBI director a preliminary enquiry report on the disproportionate assets case registered in 2007 against the Samajwadi Party chief. According to information accessed by the India Rejuvenation Initiative, a non-governmental organization seeking probity in public life, the CBI enquiry has revealed that Mulayam and his family had amassed disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs. 2.63 crores during the period between 1993 and 2005. Even if this is a relatively small sum, the case should be pursued to its logical conclusion, the IRI has urged in a letter to CBI chief Ranjit Sinha. [caption id=“attachment_1104661” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Is Mulayam Singh being let off due to political pressure? PTI[/caption] “According to the CBI report, the computation of Rs 2.63 crore does not consider gifts worth Rs. 1.07 crore based on false /forged documents, the actual cost of construction of properties at Lucknow, Saifai and Etawah, assets worth Rs. 2.8 crore acquired in the name of other family members acquired during this period,” the letter says. The India Rejuvenation Initiative, a forum seeking probity in public life, has a campaign committee comprising, among others, former chief justice of India R C Lahoti, former election commissioner JM Lyngdoh, former DGP (Uttar Pradesh) Prakash Singh, former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Rebeiro, ex-Chief of Air Staff  Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy. The letter was written by Singh on behalf of the IRI. More than eight months after the Supreme Court directed the CBI to take “lndependent action” as it considers appropriate, no follow up action has followed from the CBI. “Actually, the Supreme Court’s directions were initially given on March 1, 2007. lf we were to calculate from that date, more than six years have passed and the matter is still hanging fire The unmistakable impression one gets is that the CBI interest in a particular case is directly proportional to the ruling party’s interest in the matter. lf the government wants a case to remain in cold storage, the CBI ensures that. Conversely, if the government wants a case to be given acceleration, the CBI obliges accordingly. This is a very disturbing state of affairs,” the letter says. While an early estimate by the CBI had alleged the Yadav family had disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 2.63 crore, newspaper reports earlier this year predicted that the CBI was inclined to close the case. The SC order directing the deletion of Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple’s assets from the family’s joint assets had led their case to be considerably weaker, it was said. In July this year, even as CBI chief Ranjit Sinha ordered an enquiry into the leaking of the preliminary report in the case against Mulayam, there were allegations by the petitioner, lawyer Vishwanath Pratap, that the Centre was bearing its weight upon the CBI to close the matter. A report in Firstpost had said some CBI action against Mulayam could be expected. The petitioner in the case, Vishwanath Chaturvedi, had then told Firstpost: “On Friday I first had a telephonic conversation and then had a meeting with a Union Cabinet Minister belonging to the Congress Party. During that meeting I was told about the CBI’s move to file the closure report in DA case against  Mulayam Singh Yadav . I was told as to how important it was for the party to have Samajwadi Party support on board on Food Security Bill. But then I was severely cautioned that I must not repeat what I did in 2008 otherwise it will not augur well for me.”