So far the CBI has remained silent on the Opposition charge that it was misused to let Advani & Co off the ‘‘conspiracy’’ charge in the Babri Masjid demolition matter. The CBI has reason to: a reminder of what it told the court would be severely embarrassing to the Government.For, as late as in 2000, when three of the accused were very much Union Ministers in the Vajpayee government, the CBI stood up in the court to assert that ‘‘prima facie it is an established fact there was a criminal conspiracy among all the accused persons to demolish the disputed structure on December 6, 1992.’’The CBI’s uniform stand against all the 49 accused, including Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, got a ringing endorsement in a 200-page judgment delivered by Justice Jagdish Bhalla of the Allahabad high court on February 12, 2001.The CBI’s arguments on the revision petitions filed by Uma Bharati and 32 other accused to prevent any charges from being framed against them were unambiguous and damning.Consider the CBI’s impassioned defence of its decision to club the leaders with the kar sevaks and file a composite chargesheet in October 1993 on FIR Nos 197 and 198 dealing with the conspiracy to demolish and the delivery of inflammatory speeches, respectively.» CBI counsel P K Chaubey is quoted as arguing that all the accused persons ‘‘committed the offences in the course of the same transaction and they cannot be separated from each other and the entire episode was the result of a single general conspiracy.’’» ‘‘The accused persons acted jointly to achieve the goal of the said conspiracy i.e. to demolish Ram Janam Bhumi/Babri Masjid structure at Ayodhya.» More pointedly, the CBI contended that ‘‘a secret meeting took place (on December 5, 1992) at the residence of one of the accused persons i.e. Vinay Katiyar (who is now the state BJP chief in UP), wherein a decision was taken to demolish the disputed structure on December 6, 1992 and therefore there was an agreement amongst all the accused persons to accomplish the conspiracy to demolish the disputed structure.’’» Chaubey also said ‘‘all the offences have been committed by the accused persons in pursuance of that criminal conspiracy and in furtherance of the common object of the unlawful assembly and in the course of the same transaction.’’ What the Government will find even more embarrassing to acknowledge is that the high court upheld the decision of the Lucknow special court to entertain the CBI’s composite chargesheet. Justice Bhalla ruled that ‘‘no illegality’’ has been committed by the special court while taking cognizance of ‘‘a joint/consolidated chargesheet’’ on three important grounds.First, all the offences were committed ‘‘in the course of the same transaction and to accomplish the conspiracy.’’ Second, that the evidence for all the offences ‘‘is almost the same.’’ Therefore, these offences ‘‘cannot be separated from each other’’ irrespective of the fact that 49 FIRs (besides FIR Nos 197 and 198, there were 47 cases booked by assaulted journalists) were lodged on the basis of which 49 criminal cases were registered by the police.However, Justice Bhalla pointed out a procedural defect: the government had not taken the High Court’s consent before it bunched FIRs 197 and 198. So he removed FIR 198 from the composite chargesheet saying the defect could be easily ‘‘cured’’ by the state government.Contradicting the very spirit of this judgment, the Mayawati Government last September bifurcated the Ayodhya case and transferred FIR No 198 to a court in Rae Bareli. On May 31 this year, the CBI filed a fresh chargesheet in that court against Advani and seven others without a mention of the conspiracy charge.
