Tuesday, May 10 2005 16:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Central Vigilance Commission has submitted its opinion to the Supreme Court on whether or not former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati be prosecuted in the multi-crore Taj Heritage Corridor scam case on the basis of the evidence gathered by CBI.

Interestingly, a day after the submission of the opinion of the CVC to the Supreme Court, the CBI, whose Director had opined closure of the case, questioned Mayawati in the disproportionate assets case.

The Court on March 14 had sent the entire CBI case material, comprising 18 volumes, against Mayawati to CVC for its opinion whether she should be prosecuted or not.

This order was passed by a Bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal, Justice S B Sinha and Justice S H Kapadia, which had summoned all the evidence collected in the case by CBI in the wake of Attorney General Milon Banerjee's opinion for closure of the case against the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo.

The Investigating Officer of the Taj Heritage Corridor scam case and five other top officials had felt that prosecution could be launched against the former Chief Minister.

However, only the Director Prosecution and Director of CBI had felt that no chargesheet could be filed against her on the basis of available evidence.

Other accused in the case include former Chief Secretary of the State D S Bagga, former Union Environment Secretary K C Mishra, former State Environment Secretary R K Sharma and former secretary to Mayawati P L Punia.