Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was on the backfoot following communal violence at Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, could be somewhat relieved with reports indicating that the CBI is set to close the disproportionate assets case against him by Monday.
The Congress, which was being accused of going soft on the SP following “coalition compulsions” is, however, caught in a bit of dilemma over its “reliance on SP’s support”. The investigation agency is expected to file a closure report in the court by Monday.
While the CBI is expected to close the case against Mr Yadav following “lack of evidence”, the Opposition, particularly the BJP, is bracing to take on the Congress-led UPA over the issue.
Sources said that the CBI has not been able to gather conclusive evidence against the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and will, therefore, end its probe soon.
Agency sources said that during reinvestigation, Mr Yadav’s chartered accountants managed to explain every asset which was under the scrutiny of the agency, leaving no room for the CBI to carry out further investigation. Sources said Mr Yadav produced enough evidence to show that the assets grew during 1993-2005 because of loans from relatives which were later claimed to be gifts.
The Supreme Court had ordered a CBI inquiry on March 1, 2007 into the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by the Yadav family on a PIL by an advocate, Vishwanath Chaturvedi. In its status report filed in 2007, the CBI had alleged that the Yadavs had an income of `6.23 crore while expenditure was `4.45 crore, but they managed to acquire assets worth `4.41 crore and, hence, `2.63 crore worth of assets were disproportionate to their declared sources of income. During its inquiry, the CBI found that of the `2.63 crore of alleged disproportionate assets, nearly `1.4 crore are in the name of Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple, which has weakened the case.
In December 2012, the Supreme Court had directed the CBI to go ahead with the probe against Mr Yadav and his sons Akhilesh and Prateek, but dropped the probe against Dimple saying she was a private person not holding any public office. CBI sources pointed out that since the alleged unexplainable assets were in her name, Ms Yadav’s exclusion had weakened the case.