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CBI insists on proceeding
against all Ayodhya accused

The eight-year-old Babri Masjid demolition case took a turn of sorts on Friday as the Central Bureau of Investigation insisted on continuing criminal proceedings against Union Home Minister L K Advani and seven other prominent Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders in the Babri Masjid demolition case before a special court in Lucknow.

Arguing in the Special Court, CBI counsel P K Chaube pointed out that since the High Court had clearly upheld the charge-sheets against Union Ministers Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, VHP chief Ashok Singhal, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Rithambara and Vinay Katiyar, besides Union Home Minister L K Advani himself, the question of letting them off did not arise.

At the same time, I B Singh, counsel for the then Faizabad district magistrate R N Srivastava and senior superintendent of police D B Rai who are among the accused in the demolition case, demanded a reprieve for his clients on the basis of the February 12 order .

"Since no separate charge-sheet was filed against these two officials and they were clubbed with the 41 others (and CBI had prepared a consolidated charge-sheet for all the named and unnamed accused persons), they merited the same relief as granted to Advani and seven others by the High Court," Singh argued.

Special Additional District and Sessions Judge S K Shukla fixed March 1 for the next hearing.

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