NEW DELHI, 23 August 2005 — The Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) has recommended that former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) supremo, Mayawati be prosecuted for alleged corruption in the Rs. 1.750 billion Taj corridor scam.
The CVC, who is the country’s top anti-corruption officer, said this in a report to the Supreme Court yesterday. The CVC told the Supreme Court that the evidence collected by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was good enough to launch a prosecution against Mayawati in the multimillion Taj corridor scam case. The CVC has alleged that Mayawati gave the go-ahead to a large construction project very close to the Taj Mahal without proper clearances while she was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
The opinion of the CVC is diametrically opposite to that of the attorney general and the director of CBI, both of whom had favored the closure of the case against her.
The CVC has also recommended launching of prosecution against Environment Secretary R.K. Sharma and former UP Environment Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui in the case.
The CVC, however, recommended closure of the case against former UP Chief Secretary D.S. Bagga, Mayawati’s former secreatary P.L. Punia and top bureaucrats — V.K. Gupta, K.C. Mishra, S.C. Vali and A.K. Bose.
Opponents of Mayawati say she took bribes from builders during her three-month stint as state chief minister two years ago and authorized the building of the mall in a no-construction zone near the world-famous monument to love. She denies corruption.
Horrified conservationists had equated the project to the destruction of ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province by the hard-line Islamic Taleban regime.
Mayawati, who projects herself as a messiah for India’s millions of lower-caste people, quit her post in August 2003, a month after the Supreme Court cancelled the project and told police to verify assets of the politicians and others linked to it.
The three-judge bench said it would offer Mayawati an opportunity to explain her alleged links to the scandal after her lawyers contested the watchdog’s powers to recommend her prosecution.
The fiery politician accuses the political establishment and the media of conspiring to frame her because she belongs to the lowest Hindu caste called the Dalits.
India’s rigid caste hierarchy was outlawed when it won independence from Britain 58 years ago. But it persists in the day-to-day interaction of many of India’s one billion-plus people.
