SC asks Delhi police to trace source of cash-for-vote money
02 Sep 2011
The Supreme Court has asked the Delhi police to find the source of the cash that was displayed by BJP members in the Lok Sabha in the 2008 cash-for-vote scam.
"You have not done what we said earlier. Find out the source of money. You can do it, if you want to do it. You are capable of doing so," an SC bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice RM Lodha said after the police submitted their status report on the probe.
The apex court had, during its earlier hearing of the case, slammed the police for its "half-hearted and hopeless" probe and had asked the police to take the probe to its logical conclusion.
Disposing of the public interest litigation by former chief election commissioner JM Lyngdoh, the court gave Delhi police four weeks' time to complete the probe.
The police had since intensified the probe and submitted its report on 24 August.
Delhi Police had filed charges against Rajya Sabha member and former Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, senior BJP leader LK Advani's former close aide Sudheendra Kulkarni and two former members of Parliament belonging to the BJP.
Counsel for Lyngdoh, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the probe report and said that it did not mention the actual beneficiaries of the scam and the money trail. To this, the court said that everything would be clear from the charge sheet.
Justice Lodha said the matter was before the trial court and if it felt that further investigation was required, then it could direct likewise.