New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday refused to give urgent hearing to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s plea challenging an Allahabad High Court decision to entertain a lawsuit seeking revival of a corruption case against her in the multi-crore Taj Heritage Corridor scam.
A bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice B. Sudershan Reddy refused to give urgent hearing to Mayawati’s plea and said it would hear the matter only Nov 16 - the day slated for it.

Appearing for Mayawati, senior counsel Mukul Rohatagi sought that the high court notice to her be scrapped as it was “an abuse of the process of law”. However, the bench refused to heed him.

Now Mayawati will have to answer to the Allahabad High Court notice that sought her stand on a public interest lawsuit against alleged coruption in the Taj corridor case.

The PIL had questioned then governor T.V. Rajeswar’s 2007 refusal to grant the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sanction to prosecute Mayawati and her cabinet colleague for their alleged role in the corruption case.

The high court’s division bench of Justice Pradeep Kant and Justice Shabibul Hasan issued the notice to Mayawati and Nasimuddin Siddique Sep 18 and sought their replies by Nov 9.

The PIL was filed by Lucknow residents Kamlesh Verma, Anupama Singh and Qateel Ahmed.

The three have also questioned a designated CBI Lucknow court’s decision against taking cognizance of the CBI charge sheet against Mayawati and others, indicting them for their acts of omission and commission in the corruption case.

They have also questioned the trial court’s 2007 order to the probe agency to seek the governor’s sanction to prosecute Mayawati at a time when she was not the chief minister.

Mayawati approached the apex court questioning the locus standi of the three petitioners, as well as the authority of the high court to entertain the PIL contesting the decisions of the governor and the CBI court in a criminal matter.

She contended that only the CBI was entitled to question the decisions of the governor or the CBI court, and the agency chose not to do so.

And since the deadline to question the governor’s order had passed after the lapse of 30 days from June 3, 2007, no plea for revival of the corruption case could be made against her at any forum, she contended.

She told the apex court that even its three-judge bench, headed by erstwhile Justice S.B. Sinha, had refused on Oct 10, 2007, to interfere with the governor’s denial of sanction to prosecute her.

The three-judge bench of the apex court, which ordered the CBI in September 2003 to probe the Taj corridor scam, had ruled that it was not entitled to examine the legality of Governor Rajeshwar’s denial of sanction to prosecute Mayawati.

The legal issue was to be decided by a magisterial court and not the apex court, the bench said.

The ambitious 2002-03 Taj Heritage Corridor was to house a shopping mall close to the Taj Mahal, but the project was abandoned amid allegations of large-scale corruption and after a hue and cry that it would endanger the monument.