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Friday, Oct 26, 2007
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Bihar not competent to appeal against acquittal: Lalu Prasad

Legal Correspondent

SLP in Supreme Court challenges High Court order in assets case

Lalu Prasad

New Delhi: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi have moved the Supreme Court challenging a Patna High Court order, which permitted the Bihar government to appeal against a trial court verdict acquitting them in a disproportionate assets case.

On December 18 last, Special CBI judge Muni Lal Paswan acquitted the couple in the case, in which it was alleged that they amassed assets worth Rs. 46 lakh beyond the known sources of their income when Mr. Prasad was Chief Minister between 1990 and 1997. As the CBI, prosecuting agency, did not file an appeal, the State government approached the High Court, which by a September 20 interim order, held that the government’s appeal was maintainable.

Assailing the High Court order, Mr. Prasad and his wife said the State government was not competent to file an appeal against the trial court’s order, as only the Centre had exclusive jurisdiction over a matter dealt with by the CBI.

No State government could impede, oppose or frustrate the Centre’s executive decision under Section 378 of the Criminal Procedure Code (not to file an appeal against the acquittal), they said.

In their special leave petition, Mr. Prasad and his wife raised important questions of law, whether the fundamental rights and liberty of acquitted persons could be rendered vulnerable to the capricious will of the State government to override the Centre’s decision; and whether the High Court failed to appreciate that the State’s appeal was not bona fide and was vitiated by political motives.

Mr. Prasad and his wife sought quashing of the September 20 order, an interim stay of its operation and stay of all further proceedings pursuant to the passing of the order.

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