Cash at judge door: SC rejects Nirmal Yadav plea to block probe

Why dont you concede and trial judge should frame the charges. It cannot go on like this. Let us give a quietus to it and say that trial judge should proceed with framing of charges, said the Bench while dismissing Yadavs petition.

Senior advocate K T S Tulsi argued that the issue of sanction should be decided at the threshold and a persons right to challenge it could not be discarded. The court,however,told him that the issue regarding sanction could be raised before the trial court at any stage and hence there should not be anymore impediment before the trial court to now proceed.

Yadav had moved the apex court against the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court,which dismissed her appeal against grant of prosecution sanction.

A major controversy had erupted after Rs 15 lakh was delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur,another judge of the same High Court,in August 2008.

After she reported the matter to the Chandigarh Police,an inquiry was instituted and it was alleged that the money was meant for Yadav but was delivered to Kaur due to confusion over their names. Yadav,in her plea,denied the allegation.

Yadav had questioned her prosecution by the Central Bureau of Intelligence,contending that once the then Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan denied the sanction,his successor Justice S H Kapadia had no power to recommend sanction.

The High Court,however,dismissed her plea in 2011 after noting that records confirmed that Justice Kapadia had examined the question of sanction against her for the first time. The Supreme Court had also in September last year refused to quash criminal proceedings against Yadav.