SC gives go-ahead for Chautala brothers’ prosecution for corruption
04 Jul 2011
The Supreme Court today gave the green light for criminal prosecution of Indian National Lok Dal leaders Ajay and Abhay Chautala in a disproportionate assets case.
A division bench of V S Sirpurkar and T S Thakur dismissed the Chautalas' plea that the criminal case against them be quashed on the ground that no sanction was taken from authorities before initiating proceedings against them.
The bench upheld the earlier Delhi high court order for their prosecution, saying there was no need to get sanction for this, and vacated a the stay on the proceedings.
The Supreme Court had on 22 October last year stayed all further proceedings in the case against the Chautalas, sons of former Haryana chief minister and INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala.
The Chautala brothers had challenged a trial court order summoning them in the disproportionate assets case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. They had submitted that the CBI failed to obtain the mandatory sanction from the government before launching the prosecution, and alleged that the entire probe against them was politically motivated.
They claimed that prior sanction was necessary to prosecute members of the legislative assembly under Section 197 CrPC - the brothers were MLAs when the offence was allegedly committed.