The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday placed a fresh report before the Supreme Court on the citizenship of former Congress MP from Assam, Mani Kumar Subba, whose nationality has come under a cloud after an initial probe alleged that he obtained his birth certificate in a fraudulent manner. The report filed in a sealed cover relates to the examination of objections raised by Subba in his affidavit to the initial findings by the investigating agency which had rejected his claim that he was born in West Bengal's Silguri district.
The Congress leader, who failed to retain the Lok Sabha seat from Tezpur, had raised objections to the verification report filed by the CBI on December 10, 2007 on his nationality. The apex court in January had allowed his plea that the agency should further probe the matter as three certificates have been procured from Nepal to question his citizenship. A Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam took on record the report filed by the CBI and said any further directions could be passed after going through it. "Let us see the report first," the Bench said after it was placed by advocate Satyakam, who appeared for the CBI. The Bench refused to give the copy of report to the other counsel appearing in the matter.
The PIL filed by a Noida resident, Birendra Nath Singh, in 2005 had alleged that the then Lok Sabha MP and lottery baron had come to India after a murder case was registered against him in Nepal in early 1970s. His counsel Ambhoj Kumar Sinha had sought a copy of the latest report contending that evidence of fraud was in abundance against the politician. During the last hearing, he had submitted that when the CBI had come to the conclusion that Subba has fraudulently obtained the birth certificate to establish his nationality he did not deserve any sympathy. The CBI in its earlier report to the apex court had rejected the claim of Subba that he was born in West Bengal's Silguri district. It had said that the MP had given different dates of birth and places of birth to various authorities for different reasons and was thus "prima facie" guilty of various criminal offences.
The CBI's report had come in the backdrop of the apex court's direction to probe the nationality of Subba, who according to a public interest litigation was a Nepalese citizen who fled that country in the 1970s after a murder case was registered against him there. Subba, in an affidavit before the apex court, had claimed his date of birth as March 16, 1958. He had claimed that he was born in Dadgram village in Darjeeling district of West Bengal and his parents had migrated from Singtam village in Sikkim.
Subba had claimed he was born at a house in Dabgra in Silguri and named Phanindranath Sarkar as its owner. The PIL had alleged that Subba had changed his name from Mani Raj Limbo to Mani Kumar Subba after fleeing Nepal. The CBI in its report had said that its verification has revealed that the certificate was bogus and obtained in a fraudulent manner. "The certificate of birth produced by him in this regard along with his affidavit has been obtained by misrepresentation of facts and in a fraudulent manner since the given birth place was neither in existence nor Phanindranath Sarkar was its owner during and prior to 1958," the CBI had stated in its report.
The CBI, which had verified the affidavit filed by Subba in the apex court, had said that the documents provided by him relating to the alleged murder case against him in Nepal could not be verified as the reply from Kathmandu was awaited. "...since these documents (judgements of Supreme Court of Nepal) have originated from Nepal, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs have been requested to arrange to get the certified copy of the above document from Nepal Government through diplomatic channel and the reply is still awaited," the report had said. The CBI, which on earlier occasions, had been pulled up for adopting a dilly-dallying approach in the matter, accused Subba of giving "inconsistent" and "contradictory" details with various authorities, including the Lok Sabha Secretariat and the passport officials vis-a-vis his date and place of birth.
