Court issues notice to CBI on Rabri Devi’s plea seeking transfer of corruption case to another judge

A Delhi court on Wednesday (November 26) sought the response of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi’s plea seeking transfer of the IRCTC hotel scam case to a different judge.

Principal and Sessions Judge Dinesh Bhatt was hearing the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader’s plea and issued notice to the CBI.

However, the court refused to stay the ongoing trial proceedings in the CBI case.

On November 24, she filed a petition seeking transfer of the CBI and ED cases registered against her to another court, saying she had reasonable apprehensions that “fair and impartial justice” would not be provided.

Rabri Devi has been named as an accused in four cases, including the land for jobs and IRCTC scam case, which are being heard by special judge Vishal Gogane.

The petition, presented by Rabri Devi before the Principal District and Sessions Judge, said, “The applicant (Devi) has genuine and reasonable apprehension that proper and impartial justice will not be given by the Special Judge and in all the cases the conduct of the Special Judge during the proceedings appears to be unduly inclined towards the prosecution and biased, which can be seen from several instances of the proceedings/order of the case”.

The petition claimed that there was a “reasonable apprehension of bias” and in the interest of justice, the cases needed to be transferred to another court with competent jurisdiction.

The judge then listed the case for further proceedings on December 6.

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