2007 riot case: Allahabad HC dismisses plea against UP CM Yogi

Lucknow, February 22

In a big relief to Yogi Adityanath, the Allahabad High Court on Thursday refused to admit a plea for a CBI probe to prosecute the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in a 2007 riot case that had left one person dead.

Adityanath, along with the then Gorakhpur Mayor Anju Chowdhary and legislator Radha Mohan Agarwal, was accused of inciting a mob to riot in the over a decade-old case.

A Bench of Justice Krishna Murari and Justice A.C. Sharma hearing the petition filed by Parvez Parwaz ruled that no case would be reopened against them.

The Bench had reserved its decision on the petition on December 18, 2017, and pronounced it on Thursday.

The petitioner had challenged the order of the state government refusing to proceed against the Chief Minister.

Mohammad Asad Hayat and Parvez, in 2008 had filed petitions seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the riots that left one dead.

Additional Advocate-General Manish Goel told the court that there was no ground on which the prosecution of Adityanath could be sought.

The petitioner, however, contended that Adityanath had incited the mob into rioting in 2007 after which he was arrested and kept in custody for 11 days.

A case under several sections of the Indian Penal Code had been slapped on the then Lok Sabha member from Gorakhpur.

The case was probed by the CB-CID of the state police and in 2013 inferred that the voice samples from the speech in question were indeed of Yogi Adityanath.

The agency had filed the chargesheet but the then Akhilesh Yadav government had not given the go ahead to prosecute Adityanath then.

The CB-CID in its affidavit in 2017 had said that since the case included Sections 153 and 295 of the IPC, a green signal from the state government to frame charges was a must.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party rode to power in March 2017, it denied permission. — IANS