NEW DELHI: Railway minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi can breathe a sigh of relief with Supreme Court rejecting pleas for cancellation of their bail and clearing them of all charges of alleged manipulation of the trials against them in cases pertaining to the fodder scam, disproportionate assets and income tax.

The relief came in the form of a split ruling by a three-judge Bench dismissing the PIL filed by JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan and deputy chief minister of Bihar and BJP leader Sushil Modi.

While Justices K G Balakrishanan and A R Lakshmanan dismissed the PIL alleging a bid to favour the railway minister in the disproportionate assets case by replacing the trial judge and by restraining the Central Board of Direct Taxes not to appeal an income tax tribunal order quashing income tax cases against him, Justice S H Kapadia dissented.

The majority judgment gave a stinging blow to the NDA leaders, endorsing the argument of the RJD chief’s counsel Ram Jethmalani that the PIL was politically motivated.

“The petitioners are waging a political battle against Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi through the medium of PIL.” Justice Kapadia, however, disagreed, virtually implying that the government agencies had acted to benefit Prasad and his wife.

Referring to the promotion given to Munni Lal Paswan for his appointment as Special Judge in place of Yogendra Prasad, Justice Kapadia said the selection process left much to be desired.

While competence and suitability of two other judges, who were promoted to the post of Special Judge along with Paswan, were determined on the basis of ACRs and inspecting the judges’ reports, the criteria was not applied while promoting Paswan who had been found to be slow in disposing cases, he said.

Justices Balakrishnan and Lakshaman said it was the sole prerogative of HC on the administrative side to deal with the appointment and promotion of subordinate judges.

Rejecting the plea for monitoring the trial of the CBI cases, the majority view said once a chargesheet is filed, the role of the superior court in monitoring the case comes to an end.

The majority judgment held that non-filing of appeals against quashing of the IT cases against the duo to the tune of Rs3 million was perfectly in order as government, after obtaining opinion of revenue department and law ministry, was convinced that there was no question of law involved in it.—By arrangement with The Times of India