As the Supreme Court is expected to take up the case of Uttar Pradesh’s food scam worth `35,000 crores during the tenure of the SP government headed by Mulayam Singh, the top court has been urged to apply the 2G case principle of “deemed sanction” in three months to the case in view of the CBI probe stalled due to the question of sanction.
As the court had issued notice to the Centre and CBI on a petition of the UP government in April 2011 accusing the agency of virtually “closing” the probe due to “political reasons” with the SP supporting the UPA government, main petitioner V.N. Chatturvedi named as a respondent in the case in his affidavit alleged that the CBI has “thrown up” its hands mainly in view of the sanction issue.
The Allahabad HC had ordered the CBI probe in the two orders issued in 2007 and 2009 but when no progress was made by the agency, the Mayawati government in April 2011 filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention. Mr Chatturvedi was also issued notice by the top court for filing the affidavit.
While seeking the application of 2G case verdict on the sanction issue to the food scam, Mr Chatturvedi said despite the SC notice to the Centre, the government has not even filed “vakalatnama” till date to mark its presence before the court, though the HC had directed the UP chief secretary to get prompt sanction against all those who were involved in massive diversion of foodgrains from PDS to the open market.