A division bench of the Patna High Court, presided over by Chief Justice D P Wadhwah, yesterday handed over the Rs 200 crore Bitumen scam case in Bihar to the CBI.
However, the bench, comprising the chief justice and Justice S J Mukhopadhyaya, refused to monitor the probe as in the case of mega million fodder scam.
The bench gave this order after hearing the counsel of the petitioners, leader of the opposition in the Bihar Assembly Sushil Kumar Modi and the state general secretary of the BJP, Saryu Roy. The lawyers representing the Union government and the state also advocated their point of views on a public interest litigation filed on October 10, 1996.
The PHC maintained that the scam involved a substantial amount and there was near unanimity among the parties concerned for a CBI probe. The bench ordered the state government to transfer all the related cases filed by the state police to the CBI. The bench, however, observed that there was no reason to distrust the CBI on a fair, honest and impartial investigation into the scam. The court also refused to send notices to Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, road construction minister Illiyas Hussain and others who had been made a party by the petitioners.
The petitioners had pleaded that there were severe irregularities in the supply and transportation of bitumen from oil companies to the state between 1992-96.
The two leaders alleged that the loot of public money was committed under a conspiracy hatched by the officials of the state road construction department, oil companies and transporters with active patronage of top politicians including the road construction minister.
The verdict of the Patna High Court is being seen as another setback to the beleagured chief minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, who is already reeling under the pressure of the CBI probe into the multi crore animal husbandry racket. The road construction minister, Illiyas Hussain, considered a close confidante of the Chief Minister, has been charged with financing the rallies organised by the Janata Dal during Laloos regime.
Recently, the state unit of the BJP had issued a fifty six page booklet under the title of Chara Chor Khazana Chor (Fodder thief - Treasure thief) in which the details of the irregularities committed by the JD government,had been mentioned point by point. The booklet contains a separate chapter on the assets acquired by the road transport minister during 1993 to 1996.
The bitumen scam surfaced when the Congress MLC, Vijay Shanker Mishra, in a press conference early last year had charged Hussain with indulging in corrupt practices and maintained that several crores of rupees had been siphoned of in the purchase of bitumen.
In a swift retaliatory move, the Bihar road construction minister had denied the allegations and threatened to sue the Congress MLC for making derogatory remarks against him. However, when the issue again cropped up in the state legislature in June 1996, the minister was forced to acknowledge the financial irregularities committed in the purchase of bitumen to the tune of Rs nine crore. The ministers reply did not satisfy the opposition as well as a few members from the treasury benches.
This prompted the speaker, Deo Narayan Yadav, to announce the formation of a joint house committee to probe the scam. However, the committees probe got bogged down when a fodder scam tainted MLA, Rajo Singh (Cong) was made the chairman of the House panel. This resulted in the opposition, including the CPI, the CPM, the Congress and the BJP, quitting the committee.
In the meantime, the accountant general of Bihar issued a damaging report, indicating that the purchase of bitumen during the period 1991-95 was done without proper assessment of the requirement.
