The Hindu : National : Hearing today in Ayodhya case

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Monday, Jan 10, 2005

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Hearing today in Ayodhya case

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 9. The Supreme Court will hear tomorrow petitions challenging the dropping of the "conspiracy" charge against the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, in the Ayodhya demolition case before a Rae Bareily special court.

The apex court in September 2003 issued notice to Mr. Advani, the CBI and others on two writ petitions filed by advocates Wajahat Ansari and C.M. Shukla challenging the dropping of `conspiracy' charge in the supplementary chargesheet.

The court will also hear a review petition filed by Mohd. Aslam alias Bhure seeking review of the apex court's November 2002 order permitting the trial to go on in a Rae Bareily court instead of in Lucknow.

Mr. Bhure had also filed an application questioning the deletion of the `conspiracy' charge in the supplementary chargesheet.

Besides the CBI and the Uttar Pradesh Government, the petitioners have cited the former Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadvi Ritambara and Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Uma Bharti and Vinay Katiyar as respondents.

`A malafide exercise'

The petitioners said they were deeply aggrieved by the action of the CBI in filing a fresh chargesheet on May 30, 2003 by deleting the charge of `conspiracy' (120 B Indian Penal Code) because the same was gross and shocking abuse of the due procedure of law. They said it was a colourable and malafide exercise of authority.

The message given across the country was that by delaying the trial it was easy to escape culpability by manipulating the procedure and deleting uncomfortable charges such as "criminal conspiracy."

Merely because more than 11 years had elapsed, it would not in any way mitigate or take away the factum of criminal conspiracy against the accused persons.

The petitioners submitted that when the apex court was seized of the review petition, the trial should have proceeded on the basis of the original composite chargesheet filed by the CBI on October 4/5, 1993 under Sec. 120 B read with other Sections of IPC.

But they said that taking advantage of the apex court's order of November 29, 2002 permitting the trial to proceed in the Rae Bareili court, the CBI, under political pressure, had submitted a truncated chargesheet omitting the conspiracy charge.

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