NEW DELHI, 19 September 2003 — The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to bring charges against prominent politicians and bureaucrats, including former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and former State Tourism Minister Nassimuddin Siddiqi, for alleged irregularities linked to the Rs 1.75 billion project to build a garish shopping mall near the Taj Mahal.

A two-member bench, comprising Judges M.B. Shah and B.N. Aggarwal, asked the CBI to frame charges against Mayawati and Siddiqi in sanctioning the project as well as four top Uttar Pradesh bureaucrats and two senior central government officials.

The order quashed denials by Mayawati and her colleagues that they were linked to the construction near the famous monument in the northern town of Agra.

Mayawati quit last month after the apex court ordered CBI to speed up the probe of the scandal.

The court did not specify charges but lawyers said the CBI would now register a “first information report,” to contain criminal counts relating to corruption or fraud against the politicians and bureaucrats named by the two judges.

Mayawati’s opponents say huge sums changed hands when the contract for the shopping mall was awarded during her tenure in Uttar Pradesh.

The court halted the project in July after a public outcry, with horrified conservationists equating it to the destruction more than two years ago of ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province by the Taleban regime.

Judges Shah and Aggrawal told the CBI yesterday to frame charges against Mayawati, Siddiqi, Uttar Pradesh’s chief bureaucrat D. S. Bagga and three of his top colleagues.

They also demanded similar action against Federal Environment Secretary K.C. Mishra, who was sacked over the scandal this month, and S.C. Bali, managing director of state-owned National Project Construction Corp.

The court said the project was rooted in “serious irregularities and illegalities” and the people facing action had acted on their own to green light the mall near the 16th-century monument.

State prosecutor Ajay Agarwal said the Supreme Court had also ordered a departmental inquiry to start within seven days.

“The state government has been told that it could suspend these officers, if needed,” the lawyer said.

“Also the income tax authorities and the state government have been told to assist the CBI in verifying the personal assets of Mayawati and Siddiqi within four months,” he said.

Mayawati, who broke an alliance with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before quitting her job as chief minister, appeared visibly stunned.

“I can react only after reading the judgment in full,” she told reporters in the state capital Lucknow.

The BJP, which ruled Uttar Pradesh until its political honeymoon with Mayawati shattered, was jubilant.

It said the schoolteacher-turned-leader, widely seen as the champion of India’s casteless Hindus, called Dalits or “the oppressed,” had been exposed as corrupt.

“She called herself a Dalit’s daughter but the level of corruption she had stooped to shows that instead of working for the downtrodden, she was busy filling her own coffers,” BJP leader Vinay Katyar said. “It is corruption which finally became the reason of her downfall.”

The Taj Mahal was built by the heart-broken Moghul emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his beloved second wife who died during childbirth.

More than 10,000 artisans toiled for two decades to construct the mausoleum, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year.

The aborted complex was to have comprised upmarket shopping malls, restaurants and entertainment facilities less than a kilometer from the marble mausoleum.

(Additional input from agencies)