SC seeks response of 20 others on revival of conspiracy charge

New Delhi, Mar 4 (PTI) The Supreme Court of India on
Friday sought response from senior Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leader L K Advani, Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray and 19
others as to why criminal conspiracy charges should not be
revived against them in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
A bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and T S Thakur
issued notices to Sangh Parivar leaders on the Central Bureau
of Investigation's (CBI) appeal challenging the May 21, 2010
order of the Allahabad High Court judgement upholding a
special court's decision to drop the charges against the
leaders in a Lucknow court.
The high court had at that time, however, allowed the
CBI to proceed with the other charges against Advani and
others in a Rae Bareily court, under which the disputed
structure falls.
"What is the purpose of filing the petition. We do not
want to turn the clock back," the bench initially observed
noting that a similar plea made by the CBI in 2007 was
dismissed by the apex court.
However, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium appearing
for the CBI maintained that the earlier petition was raised on
a different ground.
Besides, Advani and Thackeray others against whom the
CBI now wants the charges of criminal conspiracy under Section
120B IPC are--Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Satish Pradhan, CR
Bansal, MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj
Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, VH Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, RV
Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, BL
Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and
Moreshwar Save.
Challenging the High Court order, the CBI has said in
its petition that "it appears an artificial distinction was
made by the trial court attempting to assign a role in respect
of each of the accused persons and to see which offences were
made out.
The trial court erroneously came to the conclusion
that 21 persons were not entitled to be tried in the case
(pertaining to the demolition on December 6, 1992).
"The order passed by the High Court results in serious
miscarriage of justice, violates the principle of consolidated
investigation, consolidated charge sheet and also disables an
effective trial," the petition said.
The May 2010 order of the High Court had said there
was no merit in the CBI's revision petition challenging the
May 4, 2001 order of the special court which directed dropping
of criminal conspiracy charges against them.