Centre seeks privilege on AG's advice

NEW DELHI: Scared of making public Attorney General Milon Banerjee''s opinion advising the Central Bureau of Investigation to withdraw criminal cases against politically-sacred Mayawati in Rs 175 crore Taj heritage corridor scam, the Congress-led UPA government has urged the Supreme Court not to disclose its contents claiming privilege.
Responding to the apex court''s direction seeking disclosure of AG''s opinion in a matter which was seized by it, Centre''s counsel P Parmeswaran filed an application on March 11 saying "the opinion of learned AG received in tape cover alongwith other documents from CBI be treated as privileged documents and claim of privilege is not waived".
It means that the sealed documents given to the court earlier should not be disclosed to other parties but the judges concerned could peruse them.
On February 14, a Bench of Justices Ruma Pal, S B Sinha S H Kapadia had questioned the investigating agency for not producing the evidence before it prior to securing AG''s opinion allowing withdrawal of cases against Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati, whose support is very dear to any political party now.
Taking a serious note of various reports in Times of India that the CBI had sought AG''s opinion though the matter was seized by the apex court, the Bench had observed: "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 (against Mayawati)."
Former UP standing counsel Advocate Ajay Agrawal, who challenged a Allahabad high court order staying Mayawati''s arrest in the Taj heritage scam, had drawn the Bench''s attention towards the Time of India reports and sought its indulgence in restraining the CBI from filing a closure report before the Lucknow trial court.
Agrawal''s application also sought setting up a "judicial commission headed by a retired SC judge" to scrutinise the CBI investigation and various documents relating to the Taj heritage scam, another expose of the Times of India.
In a stern warning to the CBI against filing a final report absolving Mayawati, the Bench said it would thoroughly scrutinise the evidence and the proposed closure opinion.
Solicitor General G E Vahanvati had assured the that no closure report would be filed by CBI till further orders.
Court commissioner Krishan Mahajan has also urged the court, which will hear the case on Monday, to direct CBI to hand over all case material in the Rs 175 crore scam case to Central Vigilance Commission for scrutiny of the agency''s work in the case.
But, Agrawal has objected to this request and urged the court to direct CBI not to disturb the investigating team which probed the matter.
He also stated that CVC has no role in the filing of the chargesheet by the CBI as the CVC was mandated to function only as a supervisory body, as was held in the Hinduja case.