Preliminary inquiry against Mulayam, Akhilesh closed in 2013: CBI tells SC

New Delhi: CBI told the Supreme Court on Friday that it had closed in 2013 a preliminary inquiry against former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh in a disproportionate assets case.

Taking note of the oral submission of the agency, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the CBI to file its response within four weeks on a fresh plea filed by a Congress activist seeking to know the status of probe in the assets case against the family members of the Samajwadi Party patriarch including his second son Prateek.

The bench, which also included Justice Sanjiv Khanna, had on March 25 granted two weeks to CBI, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to file the response to the plea. Yadav, who is contesting Lok Sabha polls from Mainpuri seat in Uttar Pradesh, in its reply has alleged that the petition, filed on the poll eve, was politically motivated.

He said the petition against him and his family was filed in 2005 and the CBI and the Income Tax Authorities did not find anything adverse.

He alleged in an affidavit that Congress activist Vishwanath Chaturvedi was trying to rake up an old disproportionate assets case against him and his family to malign their image during the current general elections.

Yadav, who had filed his affidavit in response to the notice issued to him on March 25, said Chaturvedi filed fresh plea for extraneous reasons and with an objective to gain political mileage "just at the time and eve of the 2019 General Elections with mala fide reasons".

Chaturvedi has sought a direction to the CBI to place the status report on probe either before the apex court or before a magisterial court in the assets case against the three SP leaders -- Yadav and his two sons, Akhilesh, also a former Chief Minister, and Prateek.