CBI submits report on corruption complaint against Kesri

The Central Bureau of Investigation has submitted to the Delhi high court its latest status report on a complaint alleging that Congress President Sitaram Kesri is amassing illegal wealth and bribing MLAs.

Additional Solicitor-General K N Bhatt submitted the report in a sealed brown paper envelope to a division bench comprising Chief Justice M J Rao and Justice Manmohan Sarin, which said it would peruse the report in the next 48 hours and posted the matter for hearing on February 12.

The bench directed the counsel to be ready on the next hearing with arguments on the maintainability of the public interest petition filed by Madhuresh Kumar, a freelance journalist from Bihar, on CBI's ''non-action'' on his complaint regarding Kesri.

The arguments should also incorporate submissions on the court's role in such cases, the bench added.

Bhatt had, on an earlier hearing, contested the petition, contending that the petitioner could not rush to the court within a month of filing a complaint with the CBI. He had further added that the CBI was on the job and there was no need to keep the petition pending.

The CBI has, till date, submitted three status reports to the high court on Madhuresh's complaint. On the last hearing, the report had disclosed that while some allegations had been found to be incorrect, investigation was proceeding regarding the others.

The bench had then hoped that the CBI would not seek further time to wrap up its investigations.

Senior counsel G L Sanghi, appearing for Kesri, again contended that the petition should be disposed of at the earliest because of the political damage being caused to the Congress president, who is also the parliamentary party leader.

UNI