So much so that in a startling admission, Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj told this newspaper: “The CBI has obviously targeted Mulayam Singh Yadav and (has) attempted to fix him. I told them that the case should be objectively re-examined.” What Bhardwaj does not mention, of course, is how his own role has been far from “objective.”
In March 2007, a case of disproportionate assets (DA) case was registered on directions of the Supreme Court on the basis of a PIL filed by lawyer Vishwanath Chaturvedi alleging that Mulayam had assets worth hundreds of crores.
Unusually, the apex court directed the CBI to submit its findings to the “Union of India.” The CBI completed its preliminary inquiry in October 2007 and claimed to have found “sufficient material” for a DA case. That same month, it filed an “Interlocutory Application” asking for permission to proceed with the probe “without further reference to the Union or State Government.”
That was an unusual assertion of its independence — an assertion that quickly unravelled.
For, the case took a brazen U-turn after July 22, 2008 when the Left withdrew support and the SP bailed out the UPA in the confidence vote on the nuclear deal.
Soon, the Government took the familiar route of intervention in CBI cases — via the Law Ministry and its law officers. Official records accessed by The Indian Express show how the Ministry of Law and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) — which has administrative charge of CBI — moved with alacrity to get the agency to reverse its stand.
On November 8, 2008, Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj signed a file asking for opinion of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati. The SG’s opinion, available with The Indian Express, demolished the CBI’s investigation. The law officer criticized the move to club the assets of the former Chief Minister with those of his family members stating, “Smt Malti Devi (Mulayam’s wife) and Dimple Yadav (his daughter-in-law) held no public office and there is no reference in the judgment about them holding any power or authority...It is not possible to club all assets and incomes together and conclude on the consolidated figures that there is a case...of holding disproportionate assets.”
While the CBI pegged Mulayam’s unexplained assets at Rs 2.6 crore, this was the SG’s final calculation: the former CM had movable and immovable assets valued at Rs 71.76 lakh; income and gifts totaling Rs 2.54 crore; expenditure totaling Rs 1.26 crore and thus the “surplus” of Rs 1.28 crore, in his view, “sufficiently accounts for the money for acquisition of the moveable and immovable assets of Rs 71.76 lakh.”
Concluding his opinion, Vahanvati said that “on the basis of the facts which I have set out” the Government should “look into CBI’s report” and also “consider” withdrawal of its IA, still pending before the Supreme Court.
The Law Ministry, on receipt of this opinion dated November 14, 2008, wasted no time in implementing the SG’s observations. So on November 17, 2008, Bhardwaj signed off on the file: “I agree with the legal opinion of the learned Solicitor General. The Department of Personnel may withdraw the IA pending in the Supreme Court.”
On December 4, 2008, a directive from the DoPT on the subject made one more revelation: the CBI had tagged the opinion of its Director of Prosecution, S K Sharma, along with that of the SG to justify its U-turn in the Supreme Court.
The CBI’s flip-flop invoked the surprise of the Supreme Court and the agency was asked to explain. During a hearing on January 27, 2009, the bench even indicated its anguish: “The direction in the judgment to submit the report to the Centre was possibly a mistake.” During a subsequent hearing, Vahanvati made a surprising oral submission: “My opinion in the case is no longer relevant.”
The second flip-flop in the case began to unfold as the Cong-SP relationship turned cold over seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh. And during the last hearing on March 31, the CBI informed the Supreme Court that it still “stands by its recommendations” made in the status report dated October 26, 2007 (in which a DA case is made out) and has acted in “utmost good faith.” It also asked the apex court to “ignore” the Solicitor General’s opinion in the case.
The next hearing of the case is May 5. The CBI is red-faced as it will have to explain its shifting stand. The Mulayam Singh Yadav camp is angry that the case hasn’t been wound up and his lawyers have submitted a set of 12 CDs in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court containing tapes purportedly of meetings where “negotiations” were allegedly held between CBI officials, law officers and SP leaders.
How authentic these tapes are or what’s on them may not be known yet but one thing is clear: so political has this case become that the next step in it will also be a test of which takes precedence — law or politics.
