Monday, February 14 2005 16:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Putting a spanner in the bid to close the Rs 175-crore Taj Heritage Corridor Scam case against BSP (Bahujan Samajwadi Party) supremo and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, the Supreme Court today (Feb 14, 2005) asked CBI to submit within two weeks the entire case file and the evidence collected against her.

Taking umbrage to the CBI sending the entire evidence in the case to Attorney General Milon Banerjee who opined closure of the case, a Bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal, Justice S B Sinha and Justice S H Kapadia took the agency to task for not producing the evidence before the Court first.

"It appears from the status report submitted by CBI Director U S Mishra that having regard to evidence gathered as well as the opinion of the Attorney General, that prosecution was not to be launched," the Bench said adding, "We direct the CBI to produce the entire evidence and the opinion of AG before the Court within two weeks."

Advocate Ajay Aggarwal, who has challenged the grant of virtual stay of arrest of Mayawati and other officials in the scam granted by Allahabad High Court, that unless restrained the CBI might file a closure report before the Lucknow Court.

Making its intentions clear that it would thoroughly scrutinise the evidence and the proposed closure opinion, the Bench said the CBI would do no such thing as they know that the matter was being seized of by the Apex Court.

However it recorded the statement of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati that no closure report would be filed by CBI till further orders.

Others whose name figured in the list of the accused along with Mayawati were former Chief Secretary D S Bagga, her then personal secretary P L Punia and then State environment secretary R K Sharma.