SC says it can’t help Mayawati

Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief minister Mayawati suffered a severe jolt on Monday, when the Supreme Court (SC) rejected her plea to quash a PIL pending before the Allahabad high court seeking criminal action against her in the multi-crore-rupee Taj heritage scam.

BSP chief Mayawati, who is already facing all round condemnation for misusing public money to erect her statues at a whopping cost of Rs2,600 crore, had sought the apex court’s intervention, saying her political opponents could misuse the proceedings for “destablising her government”.

But justices VS Sirpurkar and B Sudarshan Reddy remarked, “We aren’t bothered what the opposition is going to do to destabilise her government.”

The PIL was filed by Kamlesh Verma and two others after UP governor TV Rajeshwar refused sanction to prosecute Mayawati in the Taj scam.

SC, however, observed that the chief minister was at liberty to challenge the maintainability of the PIL before the HC.

“We don’t find reason to interfere at this stage,” the bench said as Mayawati’s counsel KK Venugopal termed the PIL “politically sensitive” with a potential to “destabilise the BSP government”.