A bench, comprising Justices H L Dattu and Ranjan Gogoi, decided to entertain four petitions challenging an Allahabad High Court judgment, which upheld the trial court’s decision to close prosecution of Mayawati, her erstwhile cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui and government officials, R K Sharma and Rajendra Prasad, on the ground that the governor had refused to grant sanction for their prosecution.

When the bench said, “We will examine the issue” and issued notices to respondents, Mayawati’s counsel K K Venugopal argued that these petitions were not maintainable as the apex court had earlier rejected pleas challenging the governor’s 2007 decision refusing to accord sanction to the CBI to prosecute her.

Issuing notices to Mayawati, Siddiqui, the CBI, the Centre and the UP government to file their responses to the petitions, Justices Dattu and Gogoi said, “We want to have a second look at the case.” The four petitions were filed by Kamlesh Verma, Anupma Singh, Kashi Prasad Yadav and Mamta Singh.

Appearing for Verma, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan argued that the offences under Section 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (all related to forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and corrupt acts could never be said to have been done by these officials in their official capacity and hence sanction was not a requirement for the court to carry on with trial proceedings.

He said the HC did not adjudicate the law point “whether sanction at all was needed for proceeding with the trial”. Instead, it “carved out a new case that sanction having been refused by the Competent Authority, the designated court did not have any jurisdiction to proceed with the matter, whereas, the order refusing sanction by the competent authority was not an issue at all.”

In July 6, 2012, the apex court had quashed a disproportionate assets (DA) case, allegedly linked to the Taj heritage corridor scam, saying the court had never desired the CBI to register a FIR against her in the case. But three months later, it entertained a review petition.

The bench hearing the review petition on October 9 had issued notice to Mayawati and the CBI and said it was ready to consider issuing a clarification that its judgment would not hinder the probe being taken to its logical conclusion provided the CBI obtained proper sanction in accordance with the law.

The review petition in that case was also filed by Kamlesh Verma. His counsel had argued that while directing registration of FIR against then CM Mayawati and Siddiqui in 2003 in the Taj heritage corridor scam, the apex court had been receiving the CBI’s probe status reports both on the scam as well as her alleged disproportionate assets.