Attorney General’s opinion holds no merit,a charade: CBI

In his opinion,the then Attorney General had opined that there is not even a shred of evidence against the accused in the bribery case. Reading out the judgment of Taj Corridor case,Gupta said the judgment clearly gives primacy to the opinion of investigating agency.

Placing the evolution of judicial review on the subject from the fodder scam to hawala case to Taj Corridor scam case in 2007,Gupta said the subject of police investigation had been comprehensively re-examined by the Supreme Court in the Taj Corridor case where also the opinion of the Attorney General was sought. The AG had opined that no case was made out against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Maywati,Gupta said.

“Rejecting the opinion of AG as a charade,the Supreme Court said that the opinion of the investigating team of CBI alone could be taken into consideration by the trial court,” he said.

The CBI was directed to place chargesheet before the trial court by completely excluding the AG’s opinion. “This was reiterated by the court a year later while drawing judicial curtains on the case,” Gupta argued.

In view of this,Gupta said the AG’s opinion in the judge bribery case had also to be excluded from the consideration by the trial court and even the CBI. “The AG’s opinion in Nirmal Yadav’s case also deserves to be termed as a charade,” he said.

Vehemently opposing Nirmal Yadav’s counsel K T S Tulsi’s arguments that Yadav is constitutionally entitled to all the record relating to prosecution sanction in view of Supreme Court’s judgment in S P Gupta’s case,the CBI prosecutor said the very basis of this claim had been overturned by the apex court in its latest judgment of 2011.

Taking a dig at Tulsi over his argument that if the court inspects the record,it must disclose the same to petitioner as well,Gupta said that “theory of tasting the forbidden fruit canvassed by Tulsi had also been firmly rejected by the Supreme Court in the A D M Jabalpur versus Shiv Shant Shukla of 1976”.

Gupta asserted that Yadav cannot be allowed to “subvert” the judicial system and allow to convert a high court into a regular criminal court by “short circuiting” the entire process of regular criminal trial.

The special public prosecutor argued that Yadav can raise the demand of inspecting the record during the trial.

“If Yadav is to be allowed such right,then the right is to be afforded to every accused. This will result in abortion of criminal justice system. India is not a Banana Republic and our judicial system is far far better than other countries of South Asia,” Gupta said.

Gupta also said that “so far as investigating team was concerned,there was complete unanimity in entire hierarchy of CBI up to the director that the evidence collected establishes the offence of corruption by Yadav”.

The CBI has concluded its arguments. The case has been deferred to September 21 for rejoinder by Yadav’s counsel.