NATION | Tuesday, September 8, 2009 | Email | Print | 
HC issues notice to HP Govt in VB Singh case
PC Lohumi | Shimla
Himachal High Court on Monday issued notice to the State Government on a petition filed by Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife Pratibha Singh for quashing the FIR registered against them in audio CD case. The Minister in his petition urged that the investigations in the case be done the CBI.
However, the court declined to stay the proceedings and directed the respondents to file the reply by November 3. The FIR against the petitioners was registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Virbhadra Singh and his wife asserted in their petition that the trail of the present case would amount to the abuse to the process of law as the same had been registered after twenty years of the alleged offence. They contended that if all evidence collected till date was taken as gospel truth in its entirety, even then no case was made out against the petitioners. Petitioners added that case had been registered on the basis of a CD whose origin is not known and had no basis in the eyes of law.
It was alleged that the communication took place in late 1989 and beginning of the 1990 in the CD released by former Minister Vijay Singh Mankotia and at that time audio cassettes and not CDs were in use. The question ‘qua genuineness’ of the CD was pending before the chief judicial magistrate of Shimla, they argued.
VB Singh mentioned that he was elected as Member of Parliament for five terms and had remained Chief Minister of the State for five terms. He said that he had served the people in capacity of Central Minister as well as Chief Minister and the respondents have registered this case only to malign his reputation. He alleged that such attempts were made earlier also when he was not the Chief Minister between 1998 and 2003, but nothing incriminating was found against him.
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