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CBI defends its stand in Mulayam Singh's case
A day after drawing flak from the Supreme Court, the CBI defended its stand in the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's assets-exceed-income case.
A day after drawing flak from the Supreme Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Wednesday defended its stand in the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's assets-exceed-income case.
The court Tuesday pulled up the CBI for frequently changing its position in the Samajwadi Party chief's case. Responding to the bench's query, Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran said that the CBI had acted under the legal advice of the law ministry.
This infuriated the court, which remarked: "It means that you are not acting independently. You are acting on behalf of the central government."
However, the defiant CBI shrugged off the apex court remark, saying it was as per the procedure to approach the law ministry before going to the court.
"That is as per our rules and procedures. Whenever we go to a high court or the Supreme Court, we go through the ministry of law," CBI Director Ashwini Kumar told a news channel in Delhi.
"We cannot file any affidavit without going through the ministry," Kumar said.
The Supreme Court made the stinging remark while referring to reports that the CBI had resorted to fudging figures and half-truths and lies to make a corruption case against Mulayam Singh.
"It was quite incomprehensible what it has done (in the probe). And (if) what it has done is true, only god will save us," the bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph said.
