The Supreme Court declined to cancel the bail of Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi in a disproportionate assets case.
Updated at 11.50 am
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to cancel bail granted to Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, in a disproportionate assets case and dismissed two public interest litigations seeking a change of the special judge in Patna trying the case.
The three-member bench of the court by a majority verdict of 2:1 dismissed the two PILs filed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushil Kumar Modi and Janata Dal (United) leader Rajeev Ranjan Singh Lallan, in which they have also challenged the quashing of income tax cases against the railway minister and his wife.
The judgement delivered by Justices KG Balakrishnan and AR Lakshmanan said that the PIL was not maintainable.
In a dissenting judgement, Justice SH Kapadia said the PIL was maintainable.
Justice Kapadia said that the Income Tax Department should have filed an appeal against the IT Appellate Tribunal order and he said the procedure adopted for the appointment of additional district judge Munni Lal Paswan as special judge to try disproportionate assets case was not proper.
The judgement was pronounced separately by the three judges.
Justice Balakrishnan said that there was no irregularity in the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal order.
There was no illegality in the appointment of Additional District Judge Munnilal Paswan as the special judge to try the case, he said.
Allegations against Paswan were not true, the judge said.
"The question of appointment of the judge cannot be gone into by this court," Justice Balakrishnan said, adding that the issue was under the jurisdiction of the high court.
He declined the prayer of the petitioners that the trial should be conducted by the prosecutor who had been associated with the case for a decade since it started.
Concurring with Justice Balakrishnan, Justice Lakshmanan said there could not be monitoring of the case after the chargesheet had been filed.
On cancellation of bail, he said that no ground has been made out.
On change of the special judge, Justice Lakshmanan said though the ACR of Munni Lal Paswan showed a poor service record, there was nothing to doubt his integrity.
On the change of prosecutors and officers connected with the case, he said it was the prerogative of the prosecuting agencies to appoint the lawyer for conducting the trial.
He said allegations against the Central Board of Direct Taxes, public prosecutors and the tribunal members were one-sided.
"We cannot say that these authorities acted in a mala fide manner," the court said.
Justice Lakshmanan said that the liberty of the accused could not be taken away, except in accordance with law.
He said there was no role of Prasad in the appointment of the trial judge or the tribunal members.
While maintaining there was no merit in the writ petitions which were liable to be dismissed, Justice Lakshmanan said that the petitioners were waging a political battle against Prasad and his wife and the stage for such battles could not be this court.
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