The Supreme Court has decided to examine a petition by former Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh seeking a direction to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the cash-for-vote scam during the trust vote faced by the UPA government in July 2008.
A Bench of justices Aftab Alam and RM Lodha asked senior counsel Rajeev Dhawan to place on record the FIR relating to the case so that the matter could be considered for hearing.
The petition filed through counsel Prashant Kummar and Anurag Sharma on behalf of Lyngdoh alleged though the entire nation was shocked by the spectacle of three BJP MPs displaying wads of currency notes in Parliament as bribe money to vote in favour of the UPA during the 2008 trust vote no action has so far been taken against the guilty persons.
According to the petition, though the incident had occured on July 22, 2008, neither the Delhi Crime Branch which registered an FIR nor the chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee headed by Kishore Chandra Deo, which inquired into the allegation, had so far taken any tangible step to initiate action against those responsible for the scam.
Lyngdoh urged the apex court to direct the government to set up an independent SIT to probe the allegations and try to complete the investigations within six months. He pleaded the SIT chief should be given absolute powers and independence to choose the best officers for the probe.