CBI rapped for letting Kesri go scot-free

The Delhi high court has questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation why Congress president Sitaram Kesri has not been chargesheeted in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs bribery case. Kesri was then the party treasurer.

''Only the CBI knows why Sitaram Kesri has been left out,'' Justice Jaspal Singh observed while pronouncing the judgment on criminal revision petitions filed by former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and 18 others in the case last week.

The judge said the approver's confessional statement had disclosed that on the day of voting on July 28, 1993, Kesri called the four JMM MPs and said, ''Look here, Shibu (JMM leader Shibu Soren), I have known you and Suraj (JMM leader Suraj Mandal) for the past 15 to 20 years. At present the government is in trouble. Each and every vote matters. We have settled a lot. You give your votes so that the government is saved and all the talks with the prime minister will be honoured.''

''And, we are told, the day after the voting the first instalment of bags brimming with money had been delivered,'' the judge said

Besides this, the judge pointed out many loopholes in the CBI's investigation. Justice Singh said the CBI had failed to trace the person who allegedly helped Captain Dilawar Singh, a witness in the case.

''Unfortunately, the CBI has also failed to gather any incriminating evidence from both former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal and former Union minister Ajit Singh's security personnel. We are not even told as to from where those packets came and from where they were loaded,'' the judge said.

''It, surely, is not a job well done,'' Justice Jaspal Singh said.

UNI

EARLIER REPORT:
Judge blasts Rao, finds 'substantial evidence' in MPs's bribery case