The Supreme Court on Monday deferred the hearing on the petitions of Railway Minister Lalu Yadav, his wife and CBI challenging the Patna High Court’s decision to go ahead with the appeal filed by the Bihar Government against their acquittal in the disproportionate assets case.A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said that the appeal has not yet been admitted and only the High Court had gone into the maintainability of petitions filed by the state Government.It said that the apex court can only hear the matter after the appeal is admitted. The trial court had acquitted Lalu and his wife Rabri Devi in the disproportionate assets case. Bihar Government had moved the High Court against the trial court verdict after finding that the CBI was not challenging the acquittal of Lalu and Rabri in the disproportionate assets case.Questioning the move of Bihar Government, CBI, in its petition, maintained that the Nitish Kumar Government had no locus standi to file an appeal as the case was investigated by it and the state Government cannot act contrary to the executive decision of the Centre.Special CBI judge Muni Lal Paswan had on December 18 last year acquitted the duo in the case in which Prasad was accused of having amassed assets worth Rs 46 lakh beyond his known sources of income when he was chief minister between 1990 and 1997. Rabri Devi was made a co-accused in the case.The High Court had held that the Bihar Government’s appeal challenging their acquittal in a DA case maintainable, saying the appeal could be entertained under section 378 of the CrPC relating to a case of acquittal.The investigating agency in its Special Leave Petition questioned “whether the state Government has any competence to file an appeal under section 378 of CrPC from an order of acquittal when the case has been investigated by it”.3 SC judges sworn-inNEW DELHI: Three Supreme Court judges were sworn in on Monday. Justice G S Singhvi, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice J M Panchal were administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan at a simple ceremony here.
