- (1.) These writ petitions are filed as Public Interest Litigation by the two petitioners herein who were Members of the Parliament at the time of filing the petitions. Respondent nos. 4 and 5 were formerly Chief Ministers of the State of Bihar. It is alleged by the petitioners that they filed writ petitions before the High Court of Patna alleging large-scale defalcation of public funds and falsification of accounts involving hundreds of crores of rupees in the Department of Animal Husbandary in the State of Bihar and pursuant to these allegations, several cases were registered by the Police and investigation of these cases was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. In an earlier petition filed before this Court on 19.03.1996, this Court directed that the investigation shall be monitored by the Division Bench of the Patna High Court and in that Order, it was indicated that the CBI Officers entrusted with the investigation shall inform the Chief Justice of Patna High Court from time to time of the progress made in the investigation and if they needed any directions in the matter of conducting the investigation, obtain them from him and it was also said that the learned Chief Justice may either post the matter for directions before a Bench presided over by him or constitute any other appropriate Bench. It was also directed that the State Government shall co-operate in assigning adequate number of Special judges to deal with the cases expeditiously so that no evidence may be lost.
(2.) The petitioners allege that consequent upon change of the Government in the Centre, attempts have been made to delay and interfere with the judicial process. It is alleged that the public prosecutors who were handling the cases were removed and to protect the interests of respondent nos. 4 and 5, convenient prosecutor was appointed.
(3.) The respondent no. 5 is an accused in a case registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The case is filed pursuant to the FIR registered as no. R.C. 5[A] 498/AHD-Pat dated 19.08.1998. The allegation in that case is that respondent no. 5 as Chief Minister of Bihar between 1990 to 1996 had acquired assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. Chargesheet was filed in the Court of the Special Judge, CBI, Patna on 4.04.2000 u/s. 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of the Corruption Act, 1988. Respondent no. 4 also was charge sheeted in the same case for abetment u/s. 109 of the Indian Penal Code read with Sec. 13(2) and Sec. 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. This case has been re-numbered as Special Case No. 5/1998 and is pending trial in the Court of the Special Judge, CBI, Patna. The petitioners allege that certain income tax cases of respondent nos. 4 and 5 were pending before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) and one Mr. D.K. Tyagi who was a member of the ITAT had been hearing those cases and that respondent nos. 4 and 5 found it difficult to pursue the hearings before the said ITAT member and hence at their influence Mr. Tyagi was sent on deputation and he was replaced by one Mr. Mohanaranjan who was on the verge of retirement. It is further alleged that the new member alongwith another member heard these cases within two weeks and orders were pronounced in favour of respondent nos. 4 and 5. It is also alleged that respondent no. 3, namely, the Central Board of Direct Taxes did not prefer appeal in these cases though the decision went against the revenue. This, according to the petitioners, was to help respondent nos. 4 and 5 in the cases filed against them based on the allegation that they acquired assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.;