NEW DELHI, May 6: The designated court holding trial in the multi-crore Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MPs bribery case today framed charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy against former premier P V Narasimha Rao and 19 others and dismised all the three applications seeking summoning of Congress president Sitaram Kesri.

Others against whom charges were framed include former Union ministers Capt. Satish Sharma, Buta Singh, Ajit Singh, former Haryana and Karnataka chief ministers Bhajan Lal and Veerappa Moily. Special Judge Ajit Bharihoke put the accused in two categories those MPs, who allegedly received the graft for supporting the Rao government during the 1993 no-confidence motion, and others who paid and arranged payment of the money.

The court fixed May 14 for formal framing of charges when the accused persons would be individually asked whether they plead guilty or not. If the accused persons did not plead guilty, the trial in the case would commence with the scrutiny and cross-examination of witnesses and evidence cited by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which filed three chargesheets in the bribery case accusing 21 people.

However, one of the accused, former JMM MP Shailendra Mahato had turned approver and was granted pardon by the court.

Since the detailed order was not made available either to CBI or any accused due to some clerical correction yet to be made, the grounds for dismissing three applications against Kesri could not be known. Two accused, Annadi Charan Das and Abhey Pratap Singh and two lawyers, R D Mehra and O P Saxena had sought to summon Kesri under Section 319 of Criminal Procedure Code, whose name was mentioned by the approver Shailendra Mahato in his confessional statement.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.