Court reserves verdict in case against clean chit a to Jaswant

Jodhpur, Aug 4 (UNI) A local court has reserved verdict in a protest petition filed against the Rajasthan Police CID Crime branch's clean chit and final report(FR) in favour of senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh and nine other partymen in alleged serving and/or tasting of opium during a ceremony at Mr Singh's native village in Barmer district last year.

The NDPS Act Special Court Judge B S Kumawat has reserved the order till August 12, after hearing arguments from petitioner O P Vishnoi and respondents today.

While respondent Rajasthan Police has defended the FR saying that no prima facie case of offering and/or tasting opium was found against the accused, petitioner Mr Vishnoi has alleged that the investigators had failed to record free and impartial statements of the witnesses and conduct FSL tests of vessels which were used in preparing 'opium solution' for the function.

As per the case, former the External Affairs Minister had hosted a socio-religious ceremony at his native village Jasol in Barmer district in October last year and allegedly offered opium to guests who included Rajasthan Ministers Ghanshyam Tiwari, Narpat Singh Rajvi and Madan Dilawar, government chief whip Mahavir Prasad Jain, BJP MPs Kailash Meghwal, Raghubir Singh Kaushal and Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi and sitting BJP MLAs Jogeshwar Garg and Shankar Singh Rajpurohit.

An FIR in connection with the case was lodged at the Balotra police station in Barmer district on a complaint from Mr Vishnoi and later the case was transferred to CID Crime branch which had recently filed a final report giving clean chit to the ten accused.

UNI SS AE RK2004