Rao seemed relaxed yesterday but his camp was ready with contingency plans, including the appointment of two vice-presidents for the party if Rao is summoned as a co-accused in the cheating case or is named by Shailendra Mahato, one of the JMM leaders who is to make a statement to the court today.
Rao's lieutenants were more concerned about the Pathak case than any of the others, since special CBI judge Ajit Bharihoke is to decide today whether to uphold the order of the chief metropolitan magistrate summoning Rao as a co-accused. Bharihoke could uphold that order, summon Rao as a witness or decide not to summon him at all.
Yesterday, the division bench of the Delhi High court, monitoring progress in the JMM bribery case, observed that the CBI director may have to be summoned to explain some developments in the case.
For once, the bench, comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D K Jain, seemed satisfied with the progress made in the case after having gone through the details on the files for nearly an hour in a packed courtroom. The bench adjourned the case till September 30, at the request of CBI counsel Gopal Subraman-iam, when the final report is expected to be presented to the court.
Even as they were going through the files, the two judges went inside their chamber for a discussion and continued their inspection of the files when they came back after a few minutes.
Having completed their inspection of the files, the judges expressed their intention of calling CBI director Joginder Singh to satisfy some of their queries. However, Subramaniam assured the court that he would speak to Singh immediately and that he would be able to satisfy the queries of the court on the next date of hearing.
Subramaniam told the court that investigations were fast