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22/07/2010

No court can order probe into Rs 11,412 crore scam: Bihar Speaker

 

Patna,(BiharTimes): In an unprecedented development the Speaker of Bihar Assembly, Uday Narayan Chaudhary, on Wednesday ruled that no court of law can interfere in a matter pertaining to the business of the House. 
His ruling came just a week after the Patna high 
Court ordered a CBI probe into the CAG report on irregular withdrawals of Rs 11,412 crore from the state exchequer between financial year 2002 and 2008. 
The Speaker order brought judiciary and legislature on collision course. The opposition parties are up in arms demanding the resignation of the chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio, as the High Court ordered CBI probe against them. 
Legal experts are both shocked and surprised by the Speaker action. If this is the case than whatever happened during the fodder scam was also wrong as the CAG report then too was lying pending with the Public Accounts Committee. Since both the case are exactly of the same nature––only the amount was just Rs 950 crore then and Rs 11,412 crore now––how can there be two yardsticks, they ask.


Legal luminaries are of the view that a Supreme Court Bench had already given power to the High Court to order CBI probe into the cases of corruption. 
The Speaker gave his ruling after a debate in the Assembly on the CAG report and what he said the High Court’s ‘interference’ which he termed as unconstitutional and “the contempt of the House”. 


The Speaker said no court of land or any other agency can examine the withdrawal of Rs 11,412 crore until and unless the Public Accounts Committee of the Assembly, which is still scrutinising the CAG report, submits its report to the House. 


He quoted several Articles of the Constitution and judgments delivered by different courts to substantiate his points.
Political observers say that the Speaker might have a point. But when similar fake withdrawal of Rs 950 crore was detected by the CAG in early 1990s––and even before that––the present deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, along with Shivanand Tiwary, now Janata Dal (United) MP moved the Patna High Court. Lalu Yadav had to resign and go to jail five times before being acquitted by the CBI court in December 2006. 


In this latest case of withdrawal of Rs 11,412 crore it was not the opposition parties which moved court. Instead the Patna High Court ordered the CBI probe against 47 people, including the chief minister and his deputy after a public interest litigation was filed by a lawyer Arvind Kumar Sharma. 

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