A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice A S Anand while dismissing the application for condonation of delay said ``the application contains no reasonable or satisfactory explanation.''

The government was seeking review of the April 17 judgement of a five-judge Constitution Bench which had held that MPs who had accepted bribe and voted in Parliament could not be prosecuted as they enjoy immunity under Article 105(2) of the Constitution.

The government through Additional Solicitor General R N Trivedi said that the delay in filing the review petition was due to the ``paucity of staff''.

The Bench, however, said ``delay occurring due to paucity of staff is hardly any ground for condonation of delay.Application for condonation of delay is dismissed. Accordingly, the review petition is barred by time.''

In the April 17 judgement, the apex court had held that MPs and MLAs were public servants and had said that those legislators giving bribe would attract prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The court had also ruled that legislators taking bribe but not voting in the legislature or Parliament would also be liable for prosecution.

The five-judge Bench comprised of Justices Anand, S P Bharucha, K Venkataswami, B N Kirpal and S Rajendra Babu. The Bench also criticised the government for not mentioning in the review petition that a similar petition filed seven days after the judgement was delivered in April was rejected by the court.

The earlier five-judge Bench had held that the MPs, who voted against a no-confidence against the then Narasimha Rao Government on July 28, 1993, in Parliament after receiving bribe, would enjoy immunity from prosecution under Article 105(2) of theConstitution.

From among the 21 original accused, the trial court had categorised the alleged bribe taker MPs as Shibu Soren, Suraj Mandal, Shailendra Mahato (later turned approver), Simon Marandi, Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, Anadi Charan Das, Roshan Lal, Abhay Pratap Singh, Haji Ghulam Mohammed and Ram Sharan Yadav.

In the category of alleged bribe-givers were former premier P V Narasimha Rao, Satish Sharma, Buta Singh, Bhajan Lal and M Veerappa Moily.

However, Ajit Singh, who allegedly accepted the bribe but did not vote was also directed to face prosecution.

The petitions filed by Rao, Buta Singh, Satish Sharma and others, seeking quashing of the charges framed against them by a special court, are pending before the Supreme Court.

The CBI had alleged that Rao in conspiracy with his Cabinet colleagues and others had bribed MPs from the then JMM and other parties to defeat a no-confidence motion against the Congress government.