The Hindu : SC to hear plea against withdrawal of POTA charges on Raja Bhaiya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003

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SC to hear plea against withdrawal of POTA charges on Raja Bhaiya

By Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi Sept. 9. The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a writ petition challenging the decision of the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government in Uttar Pradesh to withdraw POTA charges against the MLA, Raghubir Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya.

A three Judge Bench comprising Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Justice Brijesh Kumar and Justice S.B. Sinha fixed the date of hearing during `mention' time after hearing senior counsel, K.S. Bindra, who pleaded for early listing of the petition filed by relatives of three residents of Pratapgarh district, who had deposed as witnesses in certain murder cases against Raja Bhaiya, Uday Pratap Singh and Akshay Pratap Singh.

When counsel pleaded for status quo on the ground that Raja Bhaiya would be released on September 11, the Bench said if on Friday they could establish their case, the court would not be powerless to order appropriate action against the accused.

In their petition, S.K. Shukla, Kunwar Akhilendra Singh and Pitamber Saroj submitted that soon after Mr. Mulayam was appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on August 28, he had advised the Governor to drop POTA charges against Raja Bhaiya and two others and accordingly the Governor had accorded permission on August 29 to withdraw POTA charges against the accused.

The petitioners contended that withdrawal of POTA charges had been done without any mandate from the statute or the law and the State Government could not usurp and exclude the jurisdiction of the court. They prayed for a direction to quash the implementation of the order dated August 29.

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