Court refuses to defer Ayodhya hearing

Rae Bareli, July 18 (UNI) The Special CBI Court today rejected the defence plea to defer the proceedings of the Ayodhya demolition case in view of a criminal revision pending before Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.

The court also fixed August 19 as the next date of hearing.

On July 12, defence counsel Mridul Rakesh had informed the court that the investigating agency had already filed a criminal revision in the High Court challenging the order of the special additional judge (Ayodhya Prakaran) in the CBI vs Bala Saheb Thackeray case.

The matter in the criminal revision relates to whether the CBI has the power to prosecute the accused.

Special public prosecutor P K Chaube had pleaded that the Ayodhya demolition case being tried here had nothing to do with the criminal revision pending in the High Court nor any writ petition relating to this case was pending. Hence, the application was liable to be rejected, Mr Chaube added.

Rejecting the defence plea, Chief Judicial Magistrate Gyanesh Kumar said defence had not filed any certified copy of the criminal revision through which the court could ascertain the nature of prayer made to the HC nor it had submitted details about the CBI vs Bala Saheb Thackeray case nor the order passed by the special judge (Ayodhya Prakaran), Lucknow.

Mr Kumar said the case in which the special judge had pased an order had nothing to do with this case. If the CBI's right of prosecution had been challenged in connection with this case, it would have been proper to defer the proceedings of the case, the magistrate said.

The Bala Saheb Thakare case and the Ayodhya demolition case were different from each other and had separate status, the magistrate said.

In view of the above, the CJM rejected the defence application filed on July 12.

Meanwhile, on an application of the defence, the court exempted all the eight accused -- former deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, former union minister Murli Manohar Joshi, BJP general secretary Vinay Katiyar, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti, VHP leaders Ashok Singhal, Vishnu Hari Dalmia, Sadhvi Ritambhara and Acharya Giriraj Kishore -- from personal appearance in the court only for today.

The defence was represented by Mahipal Singh Ahloowalia.

UNI XC VS KN AK RS1925