Jaitley hails conviction

‘Besides being in power he could manage to manipulate the CBI which was prosecuting his case to sabotage the prosecution. In the year 2004 the first major attack on the UPA government was on the issue of seven tainted ministers being a part of the council of ministers. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, defended the tainted. Lalu Prasad was the foremost among the tainted who were being prosecuted. Some of his cases were successfully killed by the prosecution itself,’ said Jaitley in his article.

The BJP leader further said that the disproportionate assets case witnessed a change of judge, a change of the prosecutor, a special bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and a judgement which hardly inspired confidence. ‘The CBI decided not to appeal against the judgement. When the Bihar government appealed against the judgement the CBI successfully challenged the locus of the Bihar government to file the appeal. The disproportionate assets case was given a Judicial burial,’ said Jaitley. 

Jaitley in his article while hailing the judgement said that one can manage the system on some occasions but it is not possible to manage all the people all the time. ‘There are some men of integrity in every institution. There are many in the Judiciary who still cannot be bent. The accused were uncomfortable with the Presiding Judge, efforts to get him changed failed. The prosecutor was changed but the Supreme Court intervened and prevented that from happening and finally a historic verdict holding the 45 people guilty,’ wrote Jaitley.

The BJP leader also criticised the UPA government for bringing an ordinance to save Lalu Yadav. 

‘When Parliament did not approve the Bill and referred it to the Standing Committee, the shameless UPA government approved an Ordinance. The President was reluctant to sign the Ordinance. The Ordinance could not be approved for reasons which are well known. Today we have all understood why this Ordinance was brought,’ wrote Jaitley