Thursday, May 26 2005 13:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court appointed Committee, inquiring into 'flip flops' of Best bakery case key witness Zaheera Sheikh, has summoned for questioning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Madhu Srivastava, accused of paying huge bribes to her to turn hostile in the Best Bakery trial.

The Committee headed by Supreme Court Registrar General B M Gupta, who is assisted in the inquiry by Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Kanwaljit Deol, has asked Srivastava to appear before it on May 30 for questioning.

It also sent summons for Chandrakant Bhattu Srivastava, a Congress corporator from the Hanuman Tekri locality where the Best Bakery is situated, to appear before it on the same day along with Madhu for inquiry.

The newsportal Tehelka in a sting operation last year had captured Chandrakant on TV camera saying that the BJP MLA had paid Rs 18 lakhs to Zaheera to change her statements against the accused leading to their acquittal.

Both Madhu and Chandrakant had denied the allegations terming them as "baseless and fabricated" and an attempt to defame them.

The Committee has already examined Zaheera, who had also produced the details of her and her relatives bank accounts as directed by the Apex Court. It had recently examined Zaheera's brother Nafitullah Habibullah Sheikh.

Social activist Teesta Setalvad, whose NGO Citizen's for Justice and Peace, had brought to the apex Court's notice the alleged irregularities in the police probe into riots cases, was also examined by the Committee.