No evidence against Kesri in JMM bribery case, says CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday said there was no evidence to name Sitaram Kesri as an accused in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case.

The designated court, headed by Additional Sessions Judge Ajit Bharihoke, has reserved for Monday its verdict on three applications seeking that Congress president Sitaram Kesri be named as accused along with former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and 19 others.

O P Saxena, an advocate-petitioner, told the court that approver Shailendra Mahato had confessed that Kesri -- the Congress treasurer when an alleged conspiracy was hatched to defeat the no-confidence motion against the Rao government on July 28, 1993 -- had assured him and three other JMM leaders that promises made to them would be honoured, That constituted direct evidence, Saxena said.

Dr Surat Singh, the counsel for accused Abhay Pratap Singh and a petitioner, said the CBI could not pick and choose the accused, avoiding those against whom evidence was available and proceeding in cases only where indirect evidence could be collected.

CBI counsel A K Dutt, in a written reply to the court notice issued on Dr Surat Singh's application, said ''the petition is misconceived and has no merits whatsoever.''

The applications had been filed in the light of Mahato's confessional statement that he and other JMM MPs had received Rs 5 million each for voting against the no-confidence motion and that Kesri had also sought their votes, reassuring them personally in the central hall of Parliament that promise made to them by Rao would be kept.

The CBI claimed Mahato's statement, made under section 164 of the CRPC, ''is not evidence recorded in the course of inquiry or trial of the present case" and, therefore, section 319 of the CRPC could not be used to name Kesri as accused.

Besides Rao, former Union ministers Satish Sharma, Ajit Singh, Buta Singh and Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav and former chief ministers Bhajan Lal of Haryana and M Veerappa Moily of Karnataka are among the 20 accused in the case.

The court, meanwhile, issued notice to Mahato and the CBI on a petition seeking the arrest of the expelled JMM leader for giving interviews to the print and electronic media, prejudicing the case. The approver and the CBI have been asked to reply by Monday.