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Notice to U.P. on Ayodhya panel deposition

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI DEC. 5. The Delhi High Court today issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Government on two separate petitions by the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Kalyan Singh, and the State Minister for Rural and Urban Development, Lalji Tandon, challenging the Liberhan Inquiry Commission's notices to them to depose before it as witnesses.

The Commission has been probing the circumstances leading to the demolition of a disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

The matter has come to the Delhi High Court after about two years on a direction by the Supreme Court transferring a similar petition of Kalyan Singh pending in the Allahabad High Court to the High Court here.

The Delhi High Court had in 2000 asked Mr. Singh to move an application in the Supreme Court for transfer of his petitions pending in the two High Courts to either of the courts.

The High Court had issued the direction when counsel for the Union Government and the Commission brought to the notice of it that a similar petition was pending before the Allahabad High Court and that if it was allowed to continue, there was a possibility of conflicting verdicts by the two High Courts.

Mr. Singh and Mr. Tandon have challenged the Commission's notices to them saying that they could not be made to depose before the Commission as they are also named accused in a criminal case in connection with the demolition.

Issuing notice, Justice Manmohan Sarin said the notice returnable on January 22, 2003, be served to the Government through the Chief Secretary of the State.

The petitioners said they had genuine apprehension that their deposition would be used against them by the prosecution in the criminal case. Referring to Article 20(3) of the Constitution, counsel for Mr. Singh said that his client could not be compelled to be a witness of the Commission as that would amount to self-incrimination.

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