New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) A Delhi court Friday discharged Rajya Sabha member and former Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Amar Singh and three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders involved in the cash-for-vote scam of 2008.
The court held that three BJP MPs – Faggan Singh Kulaste, Mahavir Bhagora and Ashok Argal – had enacted a drama to expose horse-trading.
Special Judge Narottam Kaushal also discharged Sudheendra Kulkarni, close aide of BJP senior leader L.K. Advani, and BJP activist Sohail Hindustani.
The court said the facts that have emerged from the record do not create sufficient grounds for proceedings against Amar Singh, Kulkarni, Hindustani, Kulaste, Bhagora and Argal.
However, the court framed corruption charges against Sanjeev Saxena, Amar Singh’s former aide, saying that sufficient ground exists for presuming that Saxena has committed offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
On July 22, 2008, Kulaste, Bhagora and Argal waved wads of currency notes in the Lok Sabha ahead of a confidence vote, alleging they were given the money to vote in favour of the Manmohan Singh government.
In its first charge sheet filed in August 2011, Delhi Police accused Amar Singh and Kulkarni of conspiring and masterminding the cash-for-vote scam to bribe some MPs ahead of the confidence vote.
The case was registered in 2009 on the recommendation of a parliamentary panel which had probed the scam.
All the accused were booked under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and for criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code.
Argal, Kulaste and Bhagora had earlier claimed it was a sting operation to highlight horse trading in parliament, ahead of the trust vote.