RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi are free from the clutches of the Bihar government.
The Supreme Court on Thursday extended them major relief as it quashed a Patna high court (HC) order that had accepted the Nitish Kumar government’s appeal against the couple’s acquittal in a disproportionate assets case initiated and prosecuted by the CBI.
A bench of Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan and justices RM Lodha and BS Chauhan said that Bihar government could not step in to file an appeal if the investigating agency (CBI) decides not to challenge the acquittal.
Both Lalu Yadav and Rabri Devi had been chief ministers of the state before JD(U)-BJP government ousted them in the 2005 polls. They had been accused of amassing disproportionate assets worth Rs46 lakh during Lalu’s term.
Special CBI judge Muni Lal Paswan had acquitted them on December 18, 2006.
SC ruled that CBI and the Centre, took a conscious and considered decision that no ground whatsoever was made for filing an appeal against the judgment of the trial court.
The CBI too had challenged HC’s decision to admit the appeal of the Bihar government questioning its locus standi under section 378 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
