Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: September 7, 2004
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=54627
The Supreme Court today took serious
exception to the hurry with which the Bihar government had moved to withdraw
a criminal case against Union Minister Taslimuddin, and restrained the
trial court from proceeding further on the issue. It also issued notices
to him, the Bihar government and the Centre in this regard.
The interim order was passed by
a bench comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde and Justice S B Sinha on a PIL
filed by the Delhi Study Group (DSG). It pointed out that the prosecution
had moved to withdraw an attempt to murder case against Taslimuddin after
he became a minister, though the case had been pending since 1996.
Expressing its anguish over the
matter, the SC bench asked: ''Does this not show extraordinary interest
on the part of the government? What is the mortal hurry in the hearing
of an application seeking withdrawal of the case? What is the mortal urgency
to withdraw the case?...A case which was kept pending...why did the government
choose to move so fast? Does this happen to every accused in the country?''
DSG counsel Mukul Rohtagi said the
application for withdrawal was moved late on August 14, the file transferred
to a magistrate and the arrest warrant stayed- all in the same day.
However, the SC refused a plea by
the petitioners to vacate the stay granted by the trial court at Araria
on the operation of the arrest warrant issued against the minister.
The Indian Express had carried a
story talking to the complainant in the case, who admitted he had no choice
but to sign a compromise petition as all witnesses had turned hostile ('How
a Taslimuddin case collapses in Bihar, August 16). Rohatgi, in fact, also
requested the SC today to transfer the case to a neighbouring state, applying
the principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in the Gujarat riot cases,
pointing out that the witnesses had been threatened in the Taslimuddin
case as well.
Taslimuddin's counsel Nageshwar
Rao submitted that the trial court had fixed September 8 for hearing the
application seeking withdrawal of the case and pleaded that the apex court
should await the outcome of the case.
The bench said that while it would
like to await the trial court's decision, if the latter allowed the application
of the state to withdraw the case, what would happen to the petitioners'
plea to transfer the case outside Bihar?
Taslimuddin's counsel then switched
modes, suggesting political rivalry was behind the PIL. "Taslimuddin's
political rival and former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain is firing from
the shoulders of the DSG," Rao said.
However, the court said it had nothing
to do with comments passed by political parties against each other.
"If the order had been in your favour, you would have done the same thing,"
the bench added.
