NEW DELHI, January 23: The Delhi High Court today dismissed a revision petition by Janata Party president Dr Subramaniam Swamy seeking action against Finance Minister P Chidambaram under the Prevention of Corruption Act for obtaining certain shares at a price lower than the market rate in 1991.Justice A K Srivastava dismissed Dr Swamy's petition saying there were material differences between the original complaint, which was dismissed by a lower court, and its copy annexed with the revision petition filed before the High Court.
The High Court on December 12 had reserved order on Finance Minister P Chidambaram's plea for dismissal of Janata Party president Dr Swamy's revision petition against him on the grounds of alleged "fabrication of documents".
Justice Srivastava said in his judgement that Dr Swamy had himself admitted that the discrepancies between the original complaint and the copy filed before the High Court was "an inadvertent error".
Attorney General Ashok Desai appearing for the Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had said that the discrepancies in the two complaints was "an admitted attempt (by Dr Swamy) to misguide the court" and added that the petition should be dismissed.
Dr Swamy, who had appealed against the rejection of his complaint seeking CBI probe against Chidambaram for buying shares of Fairgrowth Financial Services Ltd (FFSL) in 1991 at low price through corrupt means, had said, "it was an inadvertent and innocent error not intended to camouflage the truth."
The judge had pointed out to Dr Swamy that his petition gave an impression that the complaint annexed with it was a copy of the original complaint filed before the lower court and did not say that it was an amended copy.
Arguing for Chidambaram, Arun Jaitley urged the court to dismiss Dr Swamy's petition saying, "as he has tried to play a game on the court, the petition was not sustainable." Dr Swamy in turn said that his petition should not be dismissed as it was a public interest litigation against corruption at
high places. Dr Swamy had alleged that by purchasing 10,000 shares of FFSL at a face value of Rs 10 when the market price was much higher, the then Finance Minister Chidambaram had violated Section 11 and 13 of the Act as it could be construed as receiving a consideration from the company.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
