The Delhi High Court yesterday granted anticipatory bail to V Rajeshwara Rao, who is a relative of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and a member of the Rajya Sabha, in the Rs 3.5-crore Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MPs bribery case.
Justice Mohammed Shamim, keeping in view the anticipatory bail granted by the court to former Prime Minister, former Union minister Satish Sharma, former Karnataka Chief Minister Veerappa Moily and others on Friday, granted bail to Rajeshwara Rao on similar conditions.
Narasimha Rao and others were granted anticipatory bail and the high court had ordered that in the event of their arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or at the behest of the trial court, they would be enlarged on bail on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety in the like amount.
The high court had further said that the anticipatory bail would be valid till the trial court decided the regular bail applications of the accused persons and seven days thereafter.
The case is scheduled to come up in the trial court on January 8.
It was alleged by the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha president Ravinder Kumar, the original complainant, that Narasimha Rao, in criminal conspiracy with others, had bribed four JMM leaders to buy their votes to defeat the no-confidence motion against the Congress government on July 28, 1993.
The CBI, in the first chargesheet in the case on October 30 last year, had charged Narasimha Rao, Sharma, Buta Singh and the four JMM leaders.
In its second chargesheet on December 9 last, it accused Moily, two of his erstwhile Cabinet colleagues, Rajeshwara Rao and two liquor barons, of having role in the scandal.
Counsel I U Khan, appearing for Rajeshwara Rao, pleaded that the Congress MP was a 64-year-old man, suffering from several ailments. Moreover, he did not have any role to play in the alleged conspiracy to bribe the four JMM leaders.
