Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's personal secretary, Sandeep Singh, approached the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Friday, seeking anticipatory bail in a case filed against him by the Uttar Pradesh government.
State Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu, who is a co-accused in the same case for alleged cheating and forgery in a list of 1,000 buses sent to the state government to ferry migrant workers home, is already in jail.
Singh, Lallu and 'others' were booked by the Hazratganj Police on May 19 for cheating and forging documents, after the Uttar Pradesh government said about 100 vehicles on the Congress list were not buses and majority of them lacked either a fitness certificate or valid insurance papers. The Congress rejected the claim.
On Friday, Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan of the Lucknow bench asked the police to submit the case diary and fixed the next date of hearing for June 17.
Singh's senior lawyer J. N. Mathur, argued that there was no case of criminality against his client and the FIR was a result of 'political vendetta'.
The controversy around the Congress list of buses had led to a major war of words between the Congress and the BJP
Ajay Kumar Lallu and other party workers staged a dharna on the Uttar Pradesh-Rajasthan border, where the party said it had lined up the buses to ferry migrants.
Lallu was arrested following the dharna, but was granted bail by an Agra court. He was rearrested the same day by the Lucknow Police in connection with the forgery case.
( With inputs from IANS )